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Tearful S. Korea president says responsibility ‘lies with me’

– ‘Act of murder’ –

Most of the ferry crew members escaped the vessel before it sank, and they have been vilified for abandoning hundreds of trapped passengers.

The Sewol’s captain and three crew members were charged last week with manslaughter arising from gross negligence.

“The irresponsible acts of the captain and crew members who abandoned hundreds of people are practically an act of murder,” Park said, adding that existing legislation would be amended to provide harsher penalties for officials found responsible for such accidents.

The Sewol tragedy has triggered a bout of intense soul searching in a country that had, until now, taken enormous pride in its extraordinarily rapid transformation from a war torn, impoverished backwater to Asia’s fourth largest economy.

Investigations into the disaster have suggested it was almost wholly man-made: the result of cut corners, regulatory violations, poor safety training and a woeful lack of oversight — all, or nearly all, attributable to a desire to maximise profits.

“It is our duty to reform and transform the country so that these lives were not lost for nothing,” Park said, pledging to address the corrupt culture of collusion between regulators and business.

That cozy, illicit relationship was to blame, initial investigations suggest, for the fact that the Sewol was carrying three times its cargo capacity when it capsized.

“I will stake my political life on correcting the wrong practices that have plagued our country for so long,” she said.

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South Korea is to hold key local elections in several weeks and Park’s ruling Saenuri party is concerned about the political fallout from the ferry disaster.

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