It has been 10 years since the Sewol Ferry sank with 304 passengers on April 16, 2014.  

On Tuesday you may have noticed yellow ribbons marking the day of the tragedy with a short commemoration “Always remember,” as they appeared on signs on the street or as profile images.  

The Sewol ferry capsized off the coast of Jindo, South Jeolla, on April 16, 2014, while en route to Jeju Island, killing 304 passengers and crew. Of those who died on the ferry, 250 were juniors from Danwon High School in Ansan, Gyeonggi. 

Marking the solemn 10th anniversary of the 2014 Sewol ferry tragedy, Jandi traces what led to the disaster and the circumstances which followed.    

What exactly happened on April 16, 2014  

On the morning of April 16, 476 passengers boarded the Sewol Ferry, which headed off to Jeju Island. Most were juniors from Danwon High School, Ansan, on a field trip to the island.  

At 8:50 a.m., the 6,825-ton Sewol started sinking due to an unspecified reason. It only took a little more than two hours for the five-story ship to sink entirely. At 11:20 a.m., no sign of Sewol Ferry was to be seen above the sea surface.   

The Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters announced at 11:05 a.m. that all passengers were rescued safely, but reversed the estimated numbers multiple times throughout the afternoon. The government made numerous corrections to the numbers of the missing and the rescued people. It took nearly a week for the media to confirm the number of the total passengers and that of those missing.   

The entire country was left shocked, not to mention the devastation the families of the victims went through. They waited for the return of the passengers who went down with the ferry at Paengmok Port, the closest location to where it sank.  

What were the consequences?

A total of 304 lives were lost. 250 juniors and 11 teachers from Danwon High School, and others included citizens and some tourists who were visiting Korea. Some 172 passengers, including 75 juniors, three teachers and 94 others, were rescued. The rescued people included 22 crews and the ferry captain, who escaped the ferry without evacuating the passengers inside the ship. 

The public was enraged when they found out that the victims were left behind while the Sewol ferry captain fled the scene.   

Why couldn’t the passengers escape or be rescued?

The crew instructed the passengers not to move via intercom instructions. This happened during the critical 18 minutes which was how long it took for the Coast Guard to receive the news. The announcement asking them to “stay still” continued for around an hour, but no evacuation or safety guidance followed.   

The ones who survived were either passengers who decided to climb up to the safe side of the ship or luckily found an exit near where they were. A survivor from Danwon High School, Yu Ga-young, said she wouldn’t have escaped if her close friend hadn’t pulled her up onto a maritime helicopter. 

Video footage and photographs shot inside the ferry — tilted nearly 90 degrees — surfaced online, showing the passengers struggling to keep their balance while the water leaked in. According to the survivors, the water entered the ferry at such an extreme speed that some were not even able to put on their life vests, let alone find a way to the exit. 

The delay in the response during the ‘golden time,’ referred to as the initial few minutes or hours after the accident crucial for saving lives, was a critical reason for the rescue operation failure. In a nutshell, it took 53 minutes from the initial report of the accident to mobilizing the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters. 

The weather was unforgiving too. The strong wind, the currents and the low visibility were a direct hindrance to the rescue operation. Ships and helicopters sent by the maritime police and the Navy arrived at the scene at around 9:20 a.m., but the bad weather and the strong current blocked them from conducting an effective rescue operation. As of 7 p.m., only 164 of the passengers were rescued, including just 78 students. Five rescue attempts on the following day failed due to the bad weather.   

Why did the ferry sink?

Some said the ferry sank due to an internal cause such as the ferry’s poor management and excessive loading, some argued that an external collision caused the sinking not to mention other many conspiracy theories. But none of the research or investigations were able to pinpoint the exact reason.  

The novice’s sharp turn made by an inexperienced sailor was the fundamental cause, which slowed down the initially speeding ferry at the time. The steering gear went out of the third mate’s control after she made a sudden turn. Then, for unknown reasons, the ferry made a second turn toward the north at 8:52 a.m. and traveled for 1.6 kilometers. At 10:08 a.m., the vessel stopped and started to capsize.   

The key to the sinking is what happened at 8:52 a.m. when a second turn was made, but the reason remains unclear.  

What happened next? 

(1) Punishment and political accusations

The nationwide fury demanded that the authorities in charge be judged and punished for their lack of action and failure to operate an effective control tower. That includes the Ministry of Security and Public Administration, which was in charge of the overall management of the disaster, and the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, which was in charge of the Coast Guard as well as the captain who abandoned the passengers. Captain Lee Joon-seok, who escaped the ship, got a life sentence the next year.   

President Park Geun-hye was also criticized for her irresponsibility and was questioned about the seven hours she went missing while the ferry sank. In a tearful apology, Park blamed herself for the tragedy and took responsibility for the poor handling of the government’s subsequent rescue operations. 

The de facto owner of the sunken ferry and the operating Chonghaejin Marine Company, Yoo Byung-eun, was accused of managing the ferry poorly — he had enlarged and renovated the ship too much and let the overloaded ferry sail.   

Yoo Byung-eun evaded authorities for three months after the sinking but was found dead in a field in Suncheon, South Jeolla. 

The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries was also heavily criticized for missing safety checklists to determine whether the ferry had complied with the appropriate safety and emergency measures. Each shipping company is required to obtain approval from the Oceans Ministry rather than follow regulations under a single law. When asked whether the Chonghaejin Marine Company, the maker of the sunken ferry, adhered to the safety rules submitted by the company, the Oceans Ministry said that it did not have the document, adding that the Coast Guard was in charge of carrying out those tasks. The Coast Guard declined to disclose the company’s safety guidelines.

Former Vice Oceans Minister Yoon Hag-bae, who served under the former Park government, received a finalized suspended one-year prison sentence for obstructing the Special Investigation Commission's probe into the tragedy.  

However, nine officials who worked under President Park Geun-hye were acquitted on charges of obstructing the investigation into the tragic sinking of the Sewol ferry that killed more than 300 people in 2014, many of them students on a school trip.

(2) Sewol Ferry out in the light again

March 2017, three years after the tragedy happened, the Sewol ferry was brought out of the water, and back into the light. In May 2018, another year later, the Sewol ferry was set upright at a port in South Jeolla, allowing investigators to reach previously inaccessible parts of the ferry and search for the remains of five passengers still counted as missing four years after the ship sank. 

One main reason for setting the ferry upright was to search areas that were previously inaccessible, including the engine room and one passenger cabin located close to the port side of the ferry. The investigation gathered hopes of determining the reasons for the ship capsizing.   

However, authorities have not been able to define the reason for the Sewol’s demise. 

(3) In remembrance of the Sewol ferry tragedy 🎗️

The country designated April 16 as National Safety Day in 2015 to remember the victims of the Sewol ferry disaster and the significance of safety. Candle vigils took place at Gwanghwamun Square in central Seoul, where citizens shed tears and paid regrets to the lost lives. A nongovernmental investigative body was launched according to a special Sewol law legislated in November 2014.   

Danwon High School held an honorary graduation ceremony for the 250 Danwon High School students who died.  

Every year on April 16, a commemoration is held to remember those lost in the ferry. This year on Tuesday, memorial services for the victims of the ferry sinking were held in Ansan, where 261 victims of Danwon High School were laid. Political leaders attended the ceremony, paying condolences. 

Yellow ribbons were seen everywhere as citizens showed their remorse and paid respect to those who sank with the ferry by attaching the ribbons to their bags and uploading images of them on the internet.  

The documentary "The Truth Shall Not Sink with Sewol" (2014) was produced in regards to the Sewol ferry tragedy, which was screened by the organizers of BIFF in 2014 but was banned by the mayor of Busan, leading to a political tussle. Other films and series were created in remembrance of the tragedy, including one that was produced by the father of one of the victims, and released this March.  

Has the society changed after the tragedy? 

(1) Safety measures

For a few years, field trips were canceled in Korea. As citizens’ distrust of the government was visible, schools got rid of future field or class trips. The field trip culture has since bounced back in recent years post-pandemic.  

Aware of the need to come up with replenished safety measures, the government launched the Ministry of Public Safety and Security in November 2014 to prepare an all-stop control tower for future emergencies. The ministry was later replaced by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety in 2017.  

(2) Itaewon Tragedy in 2022

Has this been the last tragedy in Korea so far? Unfortunately no. Among many disasters that took the lives of innocent people, the Itaewon Tragedy on Oct. 29, 2022, shocked the nation as 159 lives were lost in a crowd crush. The Itaewon Tragedy, which happened in Yongsan District, at a 3.2-meter-wide alleyway. Most of the victims were in their 20s and many of the 26 foreign victims were students. A crowd estimated at 100,000 was in and around the storied nightlife spot when people departing the area ran into people arriving, coming together with tragic consequences in tightly packed alleyways. 

The victims and their families and society once again suffered social trauma from the fatal accident, a tragedy that could have been prevented in advance through measures and crowd control by the district and the city.   

(3) Osong flood disaster in 2023

On July 16 last year, an underground tunnel flooding in Osong, North Chungcheong Province, killed 14 and injured 11. This was during the monsoon month. The heavy rain caused the burst of a dock, and the high water surface trapped the cars in the underground tunnel. Only those who aggressively drove back from the beginning of the tunnel could escape, unlike the others who had no chance of getting out. Again, critics say that the disaster could have been prevented if only had there been traffic control earlier, as there had been signs of danger due to the heavy rain from hours previous.   

To read more about the Sewol ferry tragedy, refer to the articles below:

- Hundreds feared dead in sunken ferry

- Uploaded video, photos show terror of accident

- Novice’s turn caused ferry to capsize, says probe

- Ministry blamed for slow ferry response

- Park makes apology, disbands Coast Guard