boy who first raised the alarm that an overloaded
ferry with hundreds of children on board was
sinking.
His body was retrieved from the sunken
ship and informally identified by his parents, the
coastguard said.
The parents had seen his body and clothes and
concluded he was their son but DNA results were
not yet known, authorities have said.
More than 300 people, most of them students and
teachers from the Danwon high school, have been
found dead or are missing presumed dead after the
16 April disaster.
The Sewol, weighing almost 7,000 tonnes, sank on
a routine trip from the port of Incheon, near Seoul,
to the southern holiday island of Jeju.
Investigations are focused on human error and
mechanical failure.
Of the 476 passengers and crew on board 339
were children and teachers from the school in
Ansan, a suburb on the outskirts of Seoul, who
were on an outing to Jeju.
As the ferry began sinking the crew told the
children to stay in their cabins.
Most of those who
obeyed died, while many who flouted or did not
hear the instructions and went out on deck were
rescued.
Only 174 people were saved. Classes at the school resumed on Thursday with
floral tributes surrounding photos of each of the
victims dressed in their school uniforms.
Fellow
students filed past offering white chrysanthemums
in sombre tributes.
Almost 250 teenagers and
teachers from the school are either confirmed or presumed dead.
The first distress call from the sinking vessel was
made by a boy with a shaking voice, three minutes
after the vessel made its fateful last turn, a fire
service officer told Reuters. The boy called the
emergency 119 number and was forwarded via the
fire service to the coastguard.
Another 20 emergency calls from children on the ship followed.
"Save us! We're on a ship and I think it's sinking,"
the boy said, according to the Yonhap news
agency.
Captain Lee Joon-seok, 69, and other crew
members who abandoned ship have been arrested
on negligence charges, while the ferry line's parent
company is also under investigation.
Lee was also
charged with undertaking an "excessive change of
course without slowing down".
There are claims the ship was grossly overloaded.
The confirmed death toll from the ship on Thursday
was 159, with many of those found at the back of
the ship on the fourth deck.
Recovery work on Thursday was concentrated on
the third and fourth decks at the front of the ship
with about 700 divers, working in shifts, and
dozens of fishing boats involved, an official told a
briefing.
Helping divers were drones and a robot
feeling for bodies along the seabed.
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