A 6,800-ton emerged from South Korean waters on Thursday. It was pulled out by salvage workers who worked throughout the day to remove the sea vessel from the ocean’s bottom. The ferry began to be pulled out nearly three years after it sunk and killed more than 300 people in what went down in history as one of South Korea’s worst maritime disasters.
The ferry, named ‘The Sewol’ sank in April 2014 while taking a turn in the waters. As a result of miscalculations in the ship’s structure as well as its high speeds, the ship capsized and delved into the ocean’s depths, finally resting at the bottom of the sea. The ship’s overloading has also been identified as a factor leading to its ill fate.
Of the 304 who died in the incident, over 90 percent were schoolchildren. It is also thought that nine unaccounted bodies lie trapped within the ship’s remains. Raising the Sewol in one piece has been a key demand of the families who lost loved ones on the ferry’s routine voyage off South Korea’s South-West coast.
The white, rusty remains of the ship first appeared above the waves on Thursday. Efforts to raise the vessel, however, had begun on Wednesday night. The ship was being held in place by two giant salvage barges which worked together to raise it. Relatives of those who had died on the ship looked on in anticipation, in the hope to finally have the chance to claim the bodies of their siblings and loved ones.
Getting this vessel out of the ocean involves complex operations and is one of the largest raisings of a whole ship that have ever been attempted. There had been prior arrangements to raise the ship. However, unfavorable weather conditions had hindered the execution of this process from happening earlier. About 450 workers were involved in the process, which now included raising 8000 to 8500 tons as a result of the deposition of material from the sea onto the ferry.
Relatives expressed their views on the Sewol finally being raised, three years on. Park Eun-mi, mother of a 17-year old daughter, lost when the ship capsized, said, “I can see it. I can see where my daughter is.” Expressing the needs of the families to reclaim the bodies of loved ones, she went on to say, “We just want one thing — for the ship to be pulled up so that we can take our children home.”
Lee Kun-Hui, the parent of another child still trapped within the ship, tearfully expressed the need for an investigation as to how the ship’s sinking occurred so as to prevent further disasters like these from happening in the future. She said, “It breaks my heart to see the ship coming up. “My daughter has been trapped in such a dirty, dark place for all these years.”
An official from the Ministry of Oceans, Lee Cheooljo, said that the people working towards fully raising the ship would need to keep working until late in the afternoon or evening so as to raise the ship’s upper side. The raise would total to about 13 meters of the Sewol being above the surface. However, the full process of getting the ship to port is likely to take days.
