Candlelit rally held in South Korea to demand truth behind Sewol ferry disaster

A candlelight rally was held once again in South Korea on Saturday night to demand truth behind the country's worst maritime disaster that claimed over 300 lives three years ago.

The 6,825-ton passenger ferry Sewol capsized and sank in waters off Jindo Island on April 16, 2014. After having lain in the seabed to the southwest of South Korea, the ill-fated vessel was salvaged earlier this week.

The ferry was transported to a semi-submersible barge that would carry it to a port in Mokpo, about 90 km away from the site. At the port, search operations will be conducted as nine bodies are still unaccounted for.

Organizers said over 100,000 South Koreans gathered at the Gwanghwamun square in central Seoul to participate in the candlelit vigil.

People chanted "Get to the bottom of the Sewol disaster" and "Imprison Park Geun-hye."

Just two weeks after the constitutional court's ruling on March 10 to remove former President Park Geun-hye from office, the ferry was successfully lifted above the sea.

Suspicions were raised that the Park administration had deliberately delayed the lifting for three years to cover up truth behind the maritime tragedy that killed 304 passengers, mostly high school students on a school trip.

Park was grilled by prosecutors on Tuesday over the corruption scandal that led to her impeachment.

Local media speculations say it would be determined early next week whether to take Park into custody.

Earlier in the day, people visited a memorial altar inside the square to mourn the victims and the nine missing passengers. People waited in queue to lay white chrysanthemum before hundreds of portraits.

Some shed tears after the mourning, while others took a look around the altar. Sculpture of yellow ribbon, which symbolized the victims, was set up with photos of the missing people attached.

Group photos of the deceased students, taken a year before the disaster, were displayed on the wall of cloth tents that have been pitched for almost three years.

Inside the tents, some of the bereaved families, politicians and civic group activists staged hunger strikes in 2014 to protest against what the families called the "deliberate hindrance" to investigation into the accident.

The hindrance seemed to have much to do with the so-called "lost 7 hours" of former President Park.

Speculation says Park failed to normally handle rescue operations for the first seven hours of the sinking, leading to the initial bungling of rescue operations and the massive deaths of passengers.

Park's whereabouts was one of the key subjects of the investigation by special prosecutors, who had probed the corruption scandal for 70 days through the end of February but found few clues to it.

One of the bereaved families said on the main stage during the Saturday demonstration that the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries tasked with the salvaging operations was seeking to dismantle the Sewol ferry on the excuse of inspection, asking people to help the wreckage left intact.

Leaving the vessel untouched would be one of the most important things in future examinations to find the clear cause of the disaster.

Over 100 holes have been drilled in the hull on the pretext of the salvaging operation, but it raised doubts about what was behind the drilling.

source: Xinhua