Prosecutors list the following reasons (they are still investigating too much cargo):
Too sharp turn the ship made while passing through a strong current;
the recent addition of cabins in the upper decks that made the ship top-heavy and impaired its ability to right itself after tilting–would the government have to approve ship modifications or not?
And of course the crew telling the passengers to remain where they were instead of evacuating them and the crew’s early desertion massively increased the death toll.
Breaking News just reported on BBC: They’ve just found that on the sister ship of the ferry that sank, life rafts and escape shoots “do not work.” That’s how they put it, but I’m not sure how a raft doesn’t work. I suppose they must be inflatable?
IIRC, it’s been mentioned that according to the rescuers who arrived before it sank all but one of the lifecraft on the sunken ferry couldn’t be deployed at all due to being stuck in place, and the one they could deploy didn’t inflate.
I don’t know why, but this incident has haunted me since I first read about it. Those poor kids texting their parents made me cry right in the middle of work. I just feel so badly for those kids and their families, and the community that just lost a staggering number of children.
“The Prime Minister is the principal executive assistant to the President who is the actual head of government, not the prime minister. The Prime Minister assists the President by supervising ministries, and make recommendations for ministers. The Prime Minister is the first in the order of succession to discharge the duties of the office of the President as the acting-president should the president be unable to discharge his office.”
Going through this list of prime ministers of South Korea, one can definitely get the impression that the key part of the job is to be the fall guy. Look at how many of them had very short stints in office.
The ferry captain and three other crew members (the chief engineer, the chief mate and the second mate) have been charged with manslaughter–if convicted they could face life imprisonment:
“Capital punishment is a legal form of punishment in South Korea. The latest death sentence was handed down to Kang Ho Sun in 2009. However, there is a moratorium in effect on state-sanctioned executions. The last execution took place on December 1997. As of 2013, there are at least 60 people with a death sentence.”