NEW YORK TIMES: JINDO, South Korea — The captain was among the first to flee. Only a couple of the 44 life rafts aboard were deployed. The hundreds of passengers were instructed over the intercom to “stay inside and wait” as the ship leaned to one side and began to sink, dragging scores of students down with it.
Hae-seong, the communications officer on the South Korean ferry that sank on Wednesday, said from his hospital bed. He added that he could not recall taking part in any evacuation drills for the ship, and that when a real emergency came, “I didn’t have time to look at the manual for evacuation.”
It took two and a half hours for the ferry, the Sewol, to capsize and become submerged in the blue-gray waters off the southwestern tip of South Korea. Yet in that time, only 179 of the 475 people believed to have been on board were rescued. By Thursday evening, the confirmed death toll was 25… (more)
EDITOR: We were on a Holland America cruise in the Mediterranean when passengers were being shuttled on small ferries to an Italian port. There were two to three times the number of passengers crowded aboard as certified, exits were blocked with items, and the number of life preservers were far inadequate.
There were only two or three crew members along with the several hundred passengers crowded together as they stood together on the upper and lower decks.
The distance for the journey was perhaps two miles. Had something gone wrong, just about everybody would have drowned.
We had quite a discussion with the Holland American cruise line captain at a reception later on the trip. Although safety precautions seemed very adequate on board, we insisted he was acting recklessly by transferring people onto unsafe shuttles.
He asked how else could he get passengers to the port. We told him that if he could not do it safely, then the cruise line should not stop at the port.
We also wrote the cruise line a letter upon return. We received no reply.
The people who should be held as responsible as the Korean ferry captain, if not moreso, are the owners and top officers of the ferry and the company operating it. Some executives care about safety out of altruism; but most need to be stimulated by the prosepct of jail time or at least heavy fines.
Every couple of years we read about ferry disaster with hundreds dying. The causes are quite obvious.
