South Korea, the ferry had a load three times higher than declared

SEUL – The search for the bodies of the 114 missing persons of the Sewol ferry, sunk on April 16 after having overturned, continues in South Korea. The corpses recovered so far are 188. A manager of the company that carried out the loading operations on the ferry reports that the boat was transporting 3,608 tons. This is a much higher estimate than that reported by the captain in the navigation documents, which spoke of 150 cars and 657 tons of other cargo. Furthermore, according to the coast guard, it is more than three times as heavy as the ferry could have safely transported according to an inspection that was carried out last year during a renovation.

Rescuers, says regional coast guard chief Kim Su-hyeon, believe that passengers still missing are trapped in 64 of the 111 cabins on the ferry. The divers checked 36 of those booths, but in some of them they will have to return because the debris made it difficult for the 92 divers to work in the wreck to understand if there were any bodies.

April 28th 2014