Sewol disaster was a deadly boat accident that took place off the southwestern coast of the East Asian nation of South Korea on April 16, 2014. That day, 304 people died after the ferry Sewol capsized in the Yellow Sea off Chin Island, also spelled Jindo. (Do is Korean for island.) Many of the dead were high school students.
Disaster.
On April 15, the Sewol left the port city of Incheon (also spelled Inchon) for Jeju Island (also spelled Cheju Island), a tourist destination that lies about 80 miles (130 kilometers) from the South Korean mainland. The 476 people on board included 325 students and 15 teachers from a high school in Ansan, a suburb of Seoul, the capital. The ferry also carried cargo and vehicles.
Around 8:50 a.m. on April 16, the Sewol made a sharp turn. The ferry began to list (tilt to one side) and started sinking. The crew made an announcement over the ship’s intercom telling passengers to stay in their cabins and that rescuers would soon arrive. However, the first coast guard boats on the scene, which arrived around 9:30 a.m., were not properly equipped to handle a disaster of such a large scale. Additional coast guard ships arrived and, with the help of local fishing boats, began evacuating the Sewol. Many of the ferry’s crew members escaped the ship as it sank, leaving the passengers for the coast guard to rescue.
The ferry eventually turned upside-down in the water, trapping passengers inside. After two hours, the Sewol sank. At first, divers were unable to enter the sunken ship because of rough seas. Rescue crews began retrieving bodies from the boat on April 19. They recovered most of the bodies by mid-July. Divers discovered another body in October.
Aftermath.
A South Korean government investigation determined that corruption and negligence had contributed to the disaster. The ship’s owners had illegally modified the Sewol to carry extra cargo in an attempt to increase profits. At the time it sank, the Sewol was carrying twice its legal weight limit of cargo. In addition, the ship had only one-third of the required amount of ballast water (water used as weight to keep a craft properly balanced). As a result, the ship was severely unbalanced and unable to recover. Investigators also discovered that the Sewol had not undergone proper safety inspections prior to the voyage. Even so, the ship had been licensed to make the journey. The ship’s captain claimed this was routine practice. Investigators also learned that the captain was not at the controls at the time of the disaster. Instead, he had left the third mate, a lower-ranking officer, in charge. Witnesses claimed that, as the ship sank, the crew panicked and only tried to save themselves.
The families of the victims of the disaster criticized South Korea’s coast guard for its slow and insufficient response. Survivors claimed coast guard members assisted people who had already exited the ship, but did not enter the ship to help people escape.
Following the disaster, the South Korean government passed laws to increase oversight of the country’s ferry industry. In November, the country’s legislature voted to disband the coast guard and assign its duties to other agencies.
Many of the ship’s crew members were tried on charges of homicide through willful negligence. Several members of the crew were sentenced to prison terms of up to 30 years. In November, the captain was found guilty of negligence and was sentenced to 36 years in prison. Relatives of the victims of the disaster argued that the sentence was too light. In April 2015, an appeals court found the captain guilty of murder and changed his sentence to life in prison. In 2017, a salvage team raised the Sewol from the sea floor so that the ship could be analyzed for further information about the disaster.
