Ferry Sinks

Although the vice-principal of the high school involved has committed suicide*, I don’t seem to recall that offing oneself in the stereotypical samurai fashion is much the fashion in Korea. I’ve spent approximately a decade living in that country. Come to think of it, living in Japan for five years, the stereotypical samurai self-offing wasn’t much in fashion for people guilty of bad things.

*The veep didn’t actually do anything wrong. Guess it was suvivor’s guilt that triggered something inside him.

Hmm, nothing so dramatic from me, sadly. The vp made me think about whatsisname in Ohio that kidnapped those girls and then - I think - hung himself in jail right after his trial.
Maybe the kind of person who saves themselves and abandons kids to die isn’t one to worry about people’s bad opinions of them, but if that were me, I’d surely rather fall off the face of the earth than have to face those parents and families in court.

Unfortunately corruption and malfeasance are still remain as serious problems in Korea.

When I was stationed there a building collapsed due to two illegal floors being built on top of it. While people were prosecuted and jailed for this, many people (if I find the citation I’ll attach the link) died as a result.

While this used to be common in the West, years of stringent inspections and strict construction and vehicle codes have all but eliminated most major infrastructure and transportation mass casualty incidents. In Asia (particularly South Asia, the Philippines and much of East Asia,excluding Japan) these kinds of events routinely occurs due to far more lax standards.

Southeast Asia too. It’s quite a problem in Thailand.

Buildings in Korea aren’t dropping at the rate they are in those backwater hellholes. Yes, a department store collapsed in Seoul back in 1995. I trust you are aware of the concept of the passage of time. That was almost 20 years ago. The government of Korea isn’t all that corrupt anymore, albeit still more corrupt than what we’re used to in the west.

You’re saying that as if it’s a good thing - and I’m not really sure that it is. What is the benefit (and to whom) of making him live a long life in jail being reminded that he is a sorry excuse for a human?

What’s the use of killing him? Capital punishment isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be and a fair number of people, your humble Monty here for one, are against capital punishment. Lot of Koreans against that, too.

I’m not suggesting he be killed either - I just think the ‘lock him up specifically so that he can be tormented a long time by guilt’ thing (which was my reading of post #38) seems a bit twisted.

I trust that you are also aware that the department wasn’t the only building to have collapsed to due this type of malfeasance. And since when isn’t the government of Korea “that corrupt” anymore?

Was there a sea change since last night?

Korea is a small country where a tiny elite essentially cycles its members through the halls of power. There have been no true “reformers” in the nation’s history and the concept of accountable government is almost alien to their political processes.

Not last night, but there certainly has been a change in its level of corruption in the last 20 years. I was mistaken. Yo’re not familiar with a particular concept.

And you obviously don’t know a blame thing about Korean politics over that same time.

It may be that captain did nothing wrong. It may be that the final capsize occurred because the passengers rushed when they saw the rescue ships coming.

What I am thinking is that the passengers were told to sit down in the depths to keep it upright.

The captain has said that “if the passengers went out when there were no rescue ships, they’d be washed away by the strong currents”…

Its unclear if the ship was taking on water or if the captain knew how unstable it was.

If he thought it was totally stable, or he thought it was very precariously on the edge, what he did was alright…

The charges suggest that the ship was stable at first and then grew worse.
BUT it seems it was unstable at the first sign of trouble.
The only issue is that the captain was not at the helm at the time the trouble began… it seems someone turned it too hard and caused the vehicles in the hold to shift.

No the major issue was the captain deserting the ship.

The cause of the disaster was making a sharp turn at high speed. While everyone talks about the person at the helm being inexperienced I don’t think it would take any of us here more than several days to learn the proper procedure–and she had a year of experience with big ships.

tv news mention that a sharp turn may not have happened. no details yet.

It may well have been a cargo securing issue. One would usually expect, within certain bounds, to be able to make a sharp turn without cargo shifting and causing a list.

Not all crew were incompetent. Here’s a young lady who died helping the passengers.

Ok this article might be disturbing to some, but: “Children’s corpses reveal desperate attempt to escape Korean ferry”
http://www.todayonline.com/world/asia/childrens-corpses-reveal-desperate-attempt-escape-korean-ferry?singlepage=true

Oh, I’m just wondering, I read somewhere that the divers could see bodies but couldn’t get to them. Is that because they can’t break the window? Seems a captive-bolt pistol might be useful. If it’s because the window’s too small then nevermind.

Please enlighten about South Korean politics.
I was stationed there and I have followed the nation’s political and economic growth since that time. However, if you feel that you know more about the subject than I do, I’d certainly be willing to learn.

Anyway…

It’s clear that this tragedy is going be the result of not only the incompetence of the captain and the majority of crew, but also:

[ol]
[li]The teachers failing to get the students on to the deck when it was clear that teh ship was heeling over - The Poseidon Adventure aside, it doesn’t take a great deal of intellect to realize that moving away from the direction in which a vessel is sinking is always the best plan.[/li][li]The Korean coast guard/Navy - For not organizing a more comprehensive rescue plan considering that they are based on a peninsula and that ferry traffic to teh islands surrounding South Korea as well as to Japan is commonplace. A practice drill even once or twice a year would have allowed for better planning and probably better results in this situation.[/li][li]**The operators of the crane vessels which were on the scene soon after the ship began to capsize **- Had the crane simply stabilized the vessel instead of allowing it to sink, then it might have been possible to locate and rescue survivors if there were indeed any. After the ship sank beneath the surface, the length of time that anyone could have survived went from possibly days to minutes.[/li][/ol]

There’s plenty of blame to go around on this one although the crew is likely to be forced to accept the brunt of it.

Oh yeah, and once the ship began to lean, couldn’t they have attached those flotation capsules they use to raise sunken ships to the side to stabilize it? How long do they take to attach?

I’m glad it’s all clear to you what this casualty resulted from and who is to blame. Personally, I’ve been involved in dealing with this sort of incident for not quite a quarter of a century, and none of it’s clear to me at all.

In the casualty investigations in which I have been involved it is commonly not clear who is to blame for a particular ship casualty for months afterwards, even to those intimately involved in the investigation. But I’m gratified you have the whole thing worked out. Next time, I’ll just call on you. After all, if you can be clear after reading a few media reports from the other side of the world, what the fuck would I need to employ high powered, long experienced master mariners for weeks on end for? Right?

As to your views on the use of crane vessels etc to keep the ship upright, your views are of great interest to me and I would be pleased to subscribe to your newsletter. As would most of the world’s greatest salvors since, as it turns out, some guy on a messageboard is completely certain that a task they would find at least monumentally difficult, and which would involve weeks to arrange, if it were possible at all, is actually easily achievable.

There are allegations the ferry was carrying three times its maximum recommended cargo: