Ferry captain says warnings ignored

April 30th, 2014

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

South Korean prosecutors say that warnings over the stability problems of the sunken ferry were ignored, as operations to recover the bodies of missing people still continue.

Senior prosecutor Yang Jong-Jin said on Wednesday that the ship’s captain, Lee Joon-seok, has told investigators that he had warned the shipping company over the ship’s serious stability problems.

The Chonghaejin Marine Company bought the ship, known as Sewol, from Japan in 2012 and renovated it and built extra passenger cabins on its third, fourth and fifth decks.

Lee told prosecutors that the refurbishments has affected the balance of the ship and undermined its anti-rolling ability.

The captain, who left the vessel when it capsized on April 16 with 476 people on board, said he had warned the company about the problems, but that he was ignored.

The 6,825-ton ferry was reportedly carrying an estimated 3,608 tons of cargo — more than three times what an inspector said it could safely carry.

The vessel sank en route to the resort Island of Jeju. Of the 476 people on board the ferry, only 175 were rescued.

According to the South Korean coastguard, the confirmed death toll stood at 210 with 92 people still missing.

It also said that rescue workers have pushed deeper into the ferry’s interior to recover more bodies.

On Tuesday, President Park Geun-hye apologized for the governemnt’s failure to prevent the disaster, saying, “I feel so regretful for having been unable to correct such long-running evils and letting an accident like this take place.”

Her apology came two days after her Prime Minister Chung Hong-Won resigned amid harsh criticism of the government’s weak performance in the aftermath of the disaster.

Authorities arrested the captain and other crewmembers on negligence charges. The captain initially told passengers to stay in their rooms and took half an hour to issue an evacuation order, by which time the ship was tilting too severely for many people to get out.

SAB/PR

Source Article from http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/04/30/360681/ferry-captain-says-warnings-ignored/