principal of a South Korean high school who
accompanied hundreds of his pupils on what
turned out to be a disastrous ferry trip has
committed suicide, police said on Friday, as hopes
faded of finding any of the 268 missing passengers alive.
Kang Min-gyu, 52, had been missing since
Thursday. He appeared to have hanged himself
with his belt from a tree outside a gym in the port
city of Jindo where relatives of the people missing
on the ship, mostly children from the school, were
gathered.
Police said Kang did not leave a suicide note and
that they started looking for him after he was
reported missing by a fellow-teacher. He was
rescued from the ferry after it capsized on
Wednesday Of the 475 passengers and crew on the ferry, 28
people had been officially been declared dead
before Kang's suicide and 179 were rescued.
The
overwhelming majority of the missing are students
from the Danwon High School on the outskirts of
Seoul, who were on a holiday trip.
Divers are fighting strong tides and murky waters
to get to the sunken ship but the likelihood of
finding any of the missing alive is slim.
At the high school in Ansan, an industrial town
near Seoul, many friends and family of the missing
gathered in somber silence, with occasional sounds
of sobbing breaking the quiet.
"When I first received the call telling me the news, at
that time I still had hope," said Cho Kyung-mi, who
was waiting for news of her missing 16 year-old
nephew at the school.
"And now it's all gone." In the classrooms of the missing, fellow students
have left messages on desks, blackboards and
windows, asking for the safe return of their missing
friends. "If I see you again, I'll tell you I love you, because I
haven't said it to you enough," reads one message.
Investigations into the sinking, South Korea's worst
maritime accident in 21 years based on possible
casualties, have centered on possible crew
negligence, problems with cargo stowage and
structural defects of the vessel, although the ship
appears to have passed all of its safety and insurance checks.
The 69-year old ship captain has also come under
scrutiny after witnesses said he was among the first
to escape the sinking vessel that was on a 400-km
(300-mile) voyage from the port city of Incheon to
the Korean holiday island of Jeju.
According to investigators, Captain Lee Joon-seok
was not on the bridge at the time the Sewol ferry
started to list sharply, with a junior officer at the
wheel. "I'm not sure where the captain was before the
accident.
However right after the accident, I saw
him rushing back into the steering house ahead of
me," said Oh Young-seok, one of the helmsmen on
the ship who was off duty and resting at the time.
"He calmly asked by how much the ship was tilted,
and tried to re-balance the ship," said Oh who was
speaking from a hospital bed in the city of Mokpo
on Friday, where those injured in the incident have
been taken. NORMAL PRACTICE Handing over the helm is normal practice on the
voyage from Incheon to Jeju that usually takes
13.5 hours, according to local shipping crew.
Divers gained access to the cargo deck of the ferry
on Friday, although that was not close to the
passenger quarters, according to a coastguard
official.
Other coastguard officials said that divers made
several attempts to make it to the passenger areas
but failed. "We cannot even see the ship's white color.
Our
people are just touching the hull with their hands,"
Kim Chun-il, a diver from Undine Marine Industries,
told relatives of the missing on Friday.
The ferry went down in calm conditions and was
following a frequently travelled route in familiar
waters. Although relatively close to shore, the area
was free of rocks and reefs.
Lee has not commented on when he left the ship,
although he has apologized for the loss of life. He was described as an industry "veteran" by the
officials from Chonghaejin Marine Co Ltd, the ship
owner, and others who had met him described him
as an "expert" who knew the waters he sailed well.
"I don't know why he abandoned the ship like
that," said Ju Hi-chun, a maritime author
interviewed the captain in 2006 as one of the
experts on the sailing route to Jeju island.
But he added: "Koreans don't have the view that
they have to stay with their ship until the end. It is a
different culture from the West." Some media reports have said the vessel turned
sharply, causing cargo to shift and the ship to list
before capsizing.
Marine investigators and the coastguard have said
it was too early to pinpoint a cause for the accident
and declined to comment on the possibility of the
cargo shifting.
The record of the ferry owner was also under
investigation and documents were removed from
its headquarters in Incheon.
Chonghaejin Marine Co Ltd is an unlisted company
that operates five ships. It reported an operating
loss of 785 million won ($756,000) last year. According to data from South Korea's Financial
Supervisory Service, a government body,
Chonghaejin is "indirectly" owned by two sons of
the owner of a former shipping company called
Semo Marine which went bankrupt in 1997.
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