Fears rise for missing in S. Korea ferry sinking

Associated Press

MOKPO, South Korea

Strong currents and bad visibility hampered rescuers today in the search for 289 passengers still missing more than 24 hours after their ferry flipped onto its side and filled with cold water off the southern coast of South Korea, causing fury among families waiting for word of passengers who were mostly high-school students.

Seven were confirmed dead, but many expect that number will rise sharply because the missing now have spent more than a day either trapped in the ferry or in the cold seawater.

There were 475 people aboard, and frantic parents have gathered at their school near Seoul and in Mokpo, in the south of the country, not far from where the ferry slipped beneath the surface until only the blue-tipped, forward edge of the keel was visible.

Parents, siblings and other relatives of three high- school students killed in the sinking wailed and sobbed as ambulances at a hospital in Mokpo took the students’ bodies to the city near Seoul where their high school is located. The families, who spent a mostly sleepless night at the hospital, followed the ambulances in their own cars.

Meanwhile, 20 divers tried to get inside the ship’s wreckage but couldn’t because of the current, the coast guard said. More than 400 rescuers searched nearby waters overnight and into this morning.