Tragedy unfolded across South Korea Wednesday as a passenger vessel with 459 persons aboard sank in the Yellow Sea off the southwest coast of the peninsula.
Reports were confused, but latest information indicates four people confirmed dead, with 291 unaccounted for. The cause of the disaster is unknown.
The Sewol (“Time and Tide”) a 6,325-ton passenger and car carrier, was travelling from Incheon, the port serving Seoul, to Jeju Island, a popular, sub-tropical leisure and tourism destination off Korea’s south coast.
Among her passengers and crew were 325 high school students on a school trip to Jeju.
The ship sent a distress signal at 08:58 as it foundered off a small island off the southwest coast. It was later reported that one of the students on board had called 911 via cellphone some six minutes before the official mayday was sent.
Survivors told local TV interviewers that they heard a bump, or crash. The ship then listed heavily to port.
Early hopes were for a positive outcome: The accident happened amid clear weather, with good visibility and within sight of land. Other vessels were almost immediately on the scene: Fishing boats, commercial ships and coast guard and navy assets, as well as helicopters.
Reports of what happened aboard are conflicting. Some school children, speaking to local reporters, said that they had been ushered onto upper decks by their teachers, from whence they were rescued. Other survivors reported that an announcement had ordered passengers to remain where they were, rather than abandoning ship.
The first photos to emerge showed the vessel lying on her beam, with a heavy list. Dramatic helicopter footage showed people being taken off the sloping hull by coast guard and fishing boats, while others were winched to safety by helicopter. Orange life rafts were visible in the water, and those being rescued were wearing life vests.
Subsequently – after perhaps two hours of listing – the Sewol capsized. By early afternoon, only a section of her upturned bow remained above water.
And as the day wore on, the scale of the tragedy grew, while harrowing reports of what had occurred flowed in from survivor interviews.
The list of the ship was so sudden and so steep that many passengers were unable to climb upward to safety, particularly with luggage and other people falling on top of them. Lights went out; water poured in. Many passengers, survivors said, heeded the order to remain in place, rather than attempting to save themselves.
As the rescue operation proceeded, there was confusion in casualty clearance and government reporting.
Official reports first suggested that there were 477 persons aboard the Sewol, of whom two had died and 368 had been accounted for. But as the day wore on, the numbers changed - for the worse. It became clear that in fact there had been 459 people aboard, four had died, and just 164 were rescued, leaving 291 persons unaccounted for.
In the early evening, President Park Geun-hye rebuked government officials for the conflicting figures.
Congregating at the affected high school, angry parents demanded “real information.” Other parents who had bused down to Jindo Island, close to the site of the tragedy, were filmed screaming and weeping as they stared out over the dark sea.
Exacerbating the trauma for parents was a text message sent by the school in the first hours, telling parents that all children had been rescued. It gradually became clear that this was based on incorrect information; in fact, most of the students remain unaccounted for.
Earlier in the day it looked as if the missing persons might have been rescued by different vessels, taken to scattered locations, and not been reported to a central clearance station set up by authorities in a local sports stadium on Jindo. As hours passed, hopes sank.
Some 174 navy divers, from underwater salvage and special operations units were dispatched to the scene, tasked with entering the submerged hull and perhaps rescuing persons trapped in air pockets. Divers were photographed in the water, and also banging on the small section upturned hull with hammers, in hopes of hearing from within.
The cause of the disaster remains a mystery.
Reports of a bang or bump suggest a collision with an underwater object, but the Sewol’s route is well charted and heavily trafficked. No film, photography or survivor account suggested it had collided with another ship, and with the incident happening almost 300 miles from the North Korean border, no North Korean involvement appears likely.
One rescued student told interviewers that the ship had stopped in heavy fog around breakfast time, but the fog lifted and proceeded in clear weather. Whether the vessel drifted off course while stopped in the fog is unknown.
Local media ran heartbreaking text messages sent by students to their parents - indicating that the children were aware of the disaster unfolding around them. One child texted his mother saying “I love you,,” She responded saying that she loved him, then asked why he had sent the message. A daughter texted her father saying she could not get up the steeply angled decks. He urged her to do so, but she responded that she could not.
As the rescue operation moves into its second day, the outlook seems unlikely to brighten.
