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A ship carrying about 200 family members made the hour-long
trip to the site of the April 16, 2014, sinking of the
6,800-tonne vessel on Wednesday before returning to port at
Jindo.
"I am so heartbroken. In such cold water, to think how cold she
would have been," Lee Jung-seob said of her daughter, Hye-kyung,
one of 250 pupils at the Danwon High School in Ansan, an
industrial city on outskirts of Seoul, who died.
"As she ended her life, to think how she would have missed her
mum and dad and her family. My heart aches so much."
The floor leader of the ruling Saenuri Party, Yoo Seung-min, was
met by furious parents when he tried to join a memorial service
at the port and was escorted away, a reflection of the anger
towards the government of President Park Geun-hye over its
handling of the disaster.
The Sewol set off on April 15 last year from Incheon, west of
Seoul, for a routine overnight voyage to the holiday island of
Jeju with 476 people on board.
The ferry, later found to have been structurally unsound and
overloaded, capsized when it made a sharp turn in the waters off
the southwestern island of Jindo. Many of the children followed
instructions to stay in their cabins as the crew scrambled to
safety.
The chief engineer was convicted of homicide and jailed for 30
years after South Korea's worst sea disaster in decades.
Fourteen surviving crew members, including the captain, were
jailed for between five and 36 years for negligence.
Heartrending stories emerged of children tying their life
jackets together, of fingernails torn of children trying to
climb out of the sinking hull and of pupils joking it felt like
the Titanic as the ferry began to list.
More than 300 people died in the disaster, with the bodies of
nine still missing.
The government is expected to decide soon to raise the vessel,
with the hope of finding the remains of the nine.
"We believe the ship must be raised," said Park Eun-kyung, whose
niece, Huh Da-yun, is missing. "We are certain she is inside the
ship. We just have to take her out."
(Writing by Jack Kim; Editing by Tony Munroe and Nick Macfie)
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