On 16 April , 2014 the 6825 ton vessel ferry named Sewol departed for a trip from Incheon to Jeju Island in South Korea, a tourist attraction, sank.
The ferry went down with 476 people around 9:45 a.m. Among them, 306 people died and out of these numbers there were 250 students and 11 teachers from Danwon High School.
The Sewol journey was set to start their shift at 7:30 in the morning of 16th of April. But at 8:48 in the morning the ship started to list to starboard.
Captain stopped the engines and thus the Sewol began to drift sideways and the listing continued. In that situation, the first announcement came not from the crew but actually one of the school children abroad as passengers.
The student was Choi Duk Ha, dialed 119 and informed the province fire station about the Sewol capsizing who is currently no more in this ferry tragedy.
At 9:38 a.m. communication cuts off between Sewol and outside of the world. After 10 min, the first helicopter came to lift people who jumped into the water.
Captain and his crew abandoned the ship being the first survivors, leaving behind the Sewol and the many students still abroad.
Most of the students were obeying the instructions given by the crew to stay and wait. “Isn’t this the kind of situation when they tell you, ‘Stay put; it will be O.K.’ and they run away for their lives?”
A teenage girl was talking with her group of friends in a video footage that seems to be taken inside of the sinking ship.
That girl was also talking about a subway accident in which passengers were similarly to stay put, “But the people who didn’t follow the order survived.”
Still they trusted the authority, captain and the crew and tried to follow their instructions but what happened?
They never get back to their home alive. Most of the survivors who made it out alive were rescued by fisherman boats and other boats nearby.
The immediate aftermath of the capsizing of The Sewol, South Korean media reported that all students had been rescued but this was far from the truth. The situation was handled very poorly.
According to one of the survivors of the tragedy, “The trapped students were very close to the exit and could have easily come out by jumping into the water with their life jackets on but they wanted to survive as instructed by the crew as they are professionals”.
The mis-timing of the rescue operation played a huge role in the tragedy. On the other hand, another outrage was that the ferry captain, who should have been there to ensure the safety of the passengers, was the first to escape.
Also, South Korean President Park Geun-hye at the time did not appear in public for nearly seven hours after news of the ship’s sinking broke.
These mistakes by the government, the captain and crew and the Coast Guard were unacceptable and unexpected.
Those who went down with Sewol were now victims and not those to be rescued. By the 22nd July recovery operations had identified and removed 294 bodies.
This put the nation into mourning , as so many victims were students. After so many years, the case is still largely unsolved.
What prompted the president to go into hiding post-tragedy? Can you shed light on the reasons behind the ship sinking initially, the delayed onset of the rescue operation, and the subpar organization of the rescue effort?
Many inquiry committees have tried to find out the cause of the sinking but have failed to arrive at a definitive answer. The captain and his crew were sentenced to prison but surprisingly the coast guard was not punished for this.
Was the song “Spring Day” dedicated to the Sewol Ferry Tragedy?
Many years have passed since the tragedy but that day has not been forgotten by anyone. Danwon High School erected a memorial to all victims of this tragedy in the form of a yellow whale, and dedicated a classroom to the memory of the victims.
Another thing is South Korean boyband BTS dedicated a song named Spring Day to the victims of Sewol Ferry Tragedy.
Many fans and publications ventured that the visual of the Spring Day MV references the Sewol Ferry Disaster.
This song came out after the 3 years of sinking of the Sewol Ferry which was improperly inspected.
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Writer,
Ayesha Siddika Hamim
Intern, Content Writing Department .
YSSE