Flowers, drinks, food and a teddy bear sit on a makeshift memorial at the main gate of Danwon high school in Ansan, on April 27, 2014/AFP
SEOUL, Apr 27 – South Korea’s prime minister resigned on Sunday, blaming corruption and “deep-rooted evil” for the sinking of a passenger ferry that left 300 people dead or missing, as anger grows over the bungled response to the tragedy.
Chung Hong-Won admitted he had not been up to the task of overseeing rescue operations after the Sewol capsized with 476 people many of them schoolchildren on board.
“I offer my apology for having been unable to prevent this accident from happening and unable to properly respond to it afterwards,” he said.
“I believed I, as the prime minister, certainly had to take responsibility and resign.”
Parents and relatives of the missing and the dead have blasted the response to the sinking, saying the rescue was too slow to swing into action and this may have cost lives.
There has also been rage over perceived corruption and lax safety standards that may have led to the disaster, with claims that the ferry was overloaded and the passenger list was inaccurate and incomplete.
“Looking at the latest accident I came to a painful realisation that there is too much deep-rooted evil and corruption in our society,” Chung said.
“I hope that such wrongdoings will be rooted out this time so that an accident like this will never happen again.”
The role of prime minister is largely ceremonial in South Korea, with the presidency holding the lion’s share of executive power.
In Jindo, the nearest island to the wreck, relatives of the dead and missing were unimpressed.
“So what?” snapped Ji Hyung-Soo. “My son is there in the sea. His resignation will never ease my bitterness and sadness.
“Anybody responsible for this disaster must be punished severely, but the most urgent thing to do now is to recover the bodies as soon as possible. I’m not interested in anything else.”
Prosecutors looking to mete out the justice that relatives want raided the offices of state sea traffic controllers in Jeju island on Sunday, the intended destination of the Sewol, and in Jindo.
They seized records of radio communication with the Sewol and surveillance video footage, Yonhap said.
A transcript of communication released earlier revealed panic and indecision among crew and sea traffic controllers in the crucial final moments, with neither able to make the call to evacuate passengers.
The confirmed death toll from the tragedy remained Sunday at 187. A total of 115 people are still unaccounted for, with many bodies believed trapped in the sunken vessel.
Divers were battling decompression sickness and atrocious weather in their grim search for corpses.
Further complicating their efforts was the increasing depth of the wreck as it slips slowly into the silt of the seabed, making an already dangerous diving operation even more hazardous.
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