Jindo: Divers retrieved the first bodies on Sunday from inside the submerged South Korean ferry that capsized four days ago with hundreds of children on board.
The confirmed death toll from the disaster stood at 58 with 244 people still unaccounted for.
Coastguard officials said 19 bodies had been removed from the ship. Prosecutors, meanwhile, revealed that the officer at the helm of the 6,825-tonne Sewol when it capsized was not familiar with those particular waters.
Three bodies were pulled out of the fully submerged ferry before midnight and another 16 were recovered later on Sunday, a coastguard spokesman said. The bodies were placed in tents at the harbour on Jindo island not far from the disaster site where the relatives have been camped out in a gymnasium since the ferry went down on Wednesday.
No sympathy from north
South Korea’s ferry disaster has elicited messages of sympathy, condolence and support from around the world, with one glaring, though not wholly unexpected, exception.
North Korea has barely commented on the tragedy. Around 45 heads of state have sent personal condolence messages. Not a word, however, from North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un who, the North’s official KCNA news agency reported, had thoroughly “enjoyed” a performance by the popular, all-female Moranbong Band on Wednesday evening, around the time the full scale of the ferry disaster was emerging.
