South Korean ferry capsized 2 dead and 290 people missing

And, it just so happens they had the worst accident/death toll hit at one time on Mount Everest at the notorious Khumbu Ice Fall where an avalanche hit mostly Sherpas. So, you can throw "climb" in there.

 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>BREAKING: Divers recover 10 more bodies from inside sunken South Korean ferry; death toll now 46.</p>&mdash; The Associated Press (@AP) <a href="https://twitter.com/AP/statuses/457660018255724544">April 19, 2014</a></blockquote>
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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TjOiQFij8WBukNPIWiNZGgMD5N-UmG_Fl9JpMRZ0I1M/pub

Death toll is now 121.
And that is confirmed dead, they've already speculated that everyone missing is probably already dead as well.

Unofficial death toll would be 300+.
What a disaster.

 

Very tragic how a combination of factors caused the disaster. If only or two of these had been avoided maybe the disaster doesn't happen or isn't as bad.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/so...rean-ferry-tragedy-spawned-twists-fate-n87846

South Korean Ferry Tragedy Spawned by Twists of Fate
By Bill Neely

In every disaster, numerous, often unconnected elements combine like atoms smashing together to create chaos and death. South Korea's worst disaster in decades was no different. It was the perfect storm.

Take a faulty ship, load it up beyond its capacity, put it in the hands of a young officer who had never steered it before, take away the captain, add a negligent crew, throw in hundreds of obedient teenagers in a society that rarely questions its elders, add a dash of human confusion and you have the mix that made a tragedy of heartbreaking proportions.

First the ship.

The Sewol had been modified last year with more passenger cabins built. The now top-heavy ship was approved by government inspectors. But the company was advised to carry less cargo, advice prosecutors say the company ignored.

Last week, more than 300 students boarded the ship unaware that port workers had loaded a cargo three times heavier than the maximum recommended. At 3,608 tons, the cargo was more than half the 6,825-ton weight of the ship.

This would prove critical.

Taking her place on the bridge was a 26-year-old third mate who had no experience of steering the ship. The regular captain was off, so a 69-year-old veteran of the route took command. He would be in his cabin when the ship got into trouble.

The ship left the port of Incheon nearly two hours late because of fog. If it had sailed on time the work-shift pattern would have ensured an experienced mate was in charge of the ship as it went through a common but treacherous short cut, not an officer who'd never sailed her before.

The steering gear had been reported faulty two weeks earlier. The captain asked for it to be repaired, but prosecutors believe no repairs were carried out. So when the helmsman was asked by the third mate during the fateful, final turn to steer five degrees right, he claimed the ship veered far more than that.

When it did, prosecutors suspect the heavy, overloaded cargo shifted and unbalanced the ship. It never recovered, sinking fast.

Prosecutors now say the shipping company lied about the weight of the cargo on the ship, and they're investigating whether the company also bribed government safety inspectors to give the modified ship the all-clear.

The passengers paid for what prosecutors say was criminal negligence with their lives. Divers began searching the deepest part of the ship on the sea bed Thursday.

When the disaster unfolded, the crew had numerous chances to evacuate the ferry but they did not. Everyone waited for the captain's order to abandon ship but most of the surviving passengers say they heard no such message. The ship's communications officer says he told the passengers to remain on board to keep them calm. And they were. They had their life jackets on and they were texting their parents and calling the emergency services to plead for help and to make adults believe the ship was sinking.

The fifteen senior crew members who control the ship's operation and who are responsible for passenger safety all escaped from the sinking ferry. Most are now behind bars, pending trial. Most of their passengers, most of the sixteen- and seventeen-year-old students, didn't have the time in the end to make their escape and went down with the ship.

The students of Danwon High should have gone back to school Wednesday, exactly a week after the ship sank. Instead hundreds of them, dead and missing, were remembered with white flowers of mourning and a huge memorial.

In one final twist of fate,the students shouldn't even have been on the Sewol. They were booked in its sister ship the Ohamana - that's what their schedule said. But, for reasons unknown, the ships were switched.

Life is full of what-ifs and might-have-beens. Death too.

 

Trial for ferry crew starts.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/so...ed-sewol-ferry-goes-trial-south-korea-n127061

Crew of Doomed Sewol Ferry Goes on Trial in South Korea

GWANGJU South Korea - Fifteen crew of a South Korean ferry that sank in April killing more than 300 people, mostly children, went on trial on Tuesday on charges ranging from negligence to homicide, with the shout going up of "murderer" as the captain entered the court.

Captain Lee Joon-seok, 68, and three senior crew were charged with homicide, facing a maximum sentence of death. Two were charged with fleeing and abandoning ship that carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. Nine were charged with negligence, which can also carry jail terms.

But family members appeared to have already convicted the crew who were caught on video abandoning ship, the captain in his underwear, while the children, obeying orders, waited in their cabins for further instructions.

As the defendants were led in, someone one shouted: "That guy is the captain, isn't he? Murderer!"

One relative held up a sign that read: "You are not human. You are beneath animals." An altercation arose between the relatives and security guards who tried to take the sign away.

The Sewol, overloaded and travelling too fast on a turn, sank off the southwest coast on April 16 on a routine journey from Incheon on the mainland to the southern holiday island of Jeju.

Of the 476 passengers and crew on board, 339 were children and teachers from the same school on the outskirts of Seoul. Only 172 people were rescued and the remainder are all presumed to have drowned.

Mourning family members packed the court in Gwangju, the closest city to the scene of the disaster, as the 15 were led in and seated in two rows of benches.

The 15 have been in detention since they were charged in May.

A Gwangju judge who handles media affairs, Hahn Jee-hyung, said the defendants were unlikely to get a full and concerted defense in the highly publicized case.

A panel of three judges presided on the first day of the trial, as the state called for justice to be served and the seven defence lawyers presented their case.