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 Kang Min-gyu, 52, had been missing since Thursday. He appeared to
have hanged himself with his belt from a tree outside a gym in the
port city of Jindo where relatives of the people missing on the
ship, mostly children from the school, were gathered.
Police said Kang did not leave a suicide note and that they started
looking for him after he was reported missing by a fellow-teacher.
He was rescued from the ferry after it capsized on Wednesday
Of the 475 passengers and crew on the ferry, 28 people had been
officially been declared dead before Kang's suicide and 179 were
rescued. The overwhelming majority of the missing are students from
the Danwon High School on the outskirts of Seoul, who were on a
holiday trip.
Divers are fighting strong tides and murky waters to get to the
sunken ship but the likelihood of finding any of the missing alive
is slim.
At the high school in Ansan, an industrial town near Seoul, many
friends and family of the missing gathered in somber silence, with
occasional sounds of sobbing breaking the quiet.
"When I first received the call telling me the news, at that time I
still had hope," said Cho Kyung-mi, who was waiting for news of her
missing 16 year-old nephew at the school.
"And now it's all gone."
In the classrooms of the missing, fellow students have left messages
on desks, blackboards and windows, asking for the safe return of
their missing friends.
"If I see you again, I'll tell you I love you, because I haven't
said it to you enough," reads one message.
Investigations into the sinking, South Korea's worst maritime
accident in 21 years based on possible casualties, have centered on
possible crew negligence, problems with cargo stowage and structural
defects of the vessel, although the ship appears to have passed all
of its safety and insurance checks.
The 69-year old ship captain has also come under scrutiny after
witnesses said he was among the first to escape the sinking vessel
that was on a 400-km (300-mile) voyage from the port city of Incheon
to the Korean holiday island of Jeju.
According to investigators, Captain Lee Joon-seok was not on the
bridge at the time the Sewol ferry started to list sharply, with a
junior officer at the wheel.
"I'm not sure where the captain was before the accident. However
right after the accident, I saw him rushing back into the steering
house ahead of me," said Oh Young-seok, one of the helmsmen on the
ship who was off duty and resting at the time.
"He calmly asked by how much the ship was tilted, and tried to
re-balance the ship," said Oh who was speaking from a hospital bed
in the city of Mokpo on Friday, where those injured in the incident
have been taken.
NORMAL PRACTICE
Handing over the helm is normal practice on the voyage from Incheon
to Jeju that usually takes 13.5 hours, according to local shipping
crew.
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Divers gained access to the cargo deck of the ferry on Friday,
although that was not close to the passenger quarters, according to
a coastguard official.
Other coastguard officials said that divers made several attempts to
make it to the passenger areas but failed.
"We cannot even see the ship's white color. Our people are just
touching the hull with their hands," Kim Chun-il, a diver from
Undine Marine Industries, told relatives of the missing on Friday.
The ferry went down in calm conditions and was following a
frequently traveled route in familiar waters. Although relatively
close to shore, the area was free of rocks and reefs.
Lee has not commented on when he left the ship, although he has
apologized for the loss of life.
He was described as an industry "veteran" by the officials from
Chonghaejin Marine Co Ltd, the ship owner, and others who had met
him described him as an "expert" who knew the waters he sailed well.
"I don't know why he abandoned the ship like that," said Ju Hi-chun,
a maritime author interviewed the captain in 2006 as one of the
experts on the sailing route to Jeju island.
But he added: "Koreans don't have the view that they have to stay
with their ship until the end. It is a different culture from the
West."
Some media reports have said the vessel turned sharply, causing
cargo to shift and the ship to list before capsizing.
Marine investigators and the coastguard have said it was too early
to pinpoint a cause for the accident and declined to comment on the
possibility of the cargo shifting.
The record of the ferry owner was also under investigation and
documents were removed from its headquarters in Incheon.
Chonghaejin Marine Co Ltd is an unlisted company that operates five
ships. It reported an operating loss of 785 million won ($756,000)
last year.
According to data from South Korea's Financial Supervisory Service,
a government body, Chonghaejin is "indirectly" owned by two sons of
the owner of a former shipping company called Semo Marine which went
bankrupt in 1997.
(Additional reporting by Jack Kim, Miyoung Kim, James Pearson, Sohee
Kim and Cho Meeyoung; writing by David Chance; editing by Raju
Gopalakrishnan)
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