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© Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Divers begin pulling bodies from sunken ferry
By FOSTER KLUG and HYUNG-JIN KIM MOKPO, South Korea©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.
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Jan Claudius Weirauch
If Salvage divers become emotional they cannot help anyone, if family's of victims blame the government because of there emotions they prevent them from helping. I understand they can't thing rational at this moment...still it's not helping. I don't know Koreans so I wont judge.
bass4funk
@Jan
You're 100% correct! I lived for 3 years in South Korea and Koreans can be extremely emotional and they look at it from the perspective that the school is responsible for organizing the whole thing and the way it was done. Even though it wasn't the Vice Principles fault what happened, Koreans put the blame with him, of course he felt bad and that's why the overwhelming pain and feeling of responsibility drove him to commit suicide. And as people say, s*** rolls downhill, the Captian is next, which of course makes perfect sense, what the heck he was thinking is way above my wildest comprehensions. Now they want to go to the president and demand she do something. I feel so bad for these people. But on the other hand, when Koreans get emotional, they often don't calm down and all rationality goes out the window. There is a reason for everything and if it takes time, at least there should be periodic updates. Other than that as painful as it is, they families have to be patient. There is NO other way.
Jan Claudius Weirauch
But than again, if said conditions are true bad visibility, strong currents and a depth of 45m or more, it's not exactly an easy task to dive in there, also keep in mind a ferry has many biodegradable things on Bord, such as food blankets etc. This stuff creates immense hazards when diving, Also this would be an overhead environment, that means the diver(s) can not go up to the surface. To spend time on the wreck they need to breath special gasses such as a helium-Oxygen-nitrogen mixture (Trimix), Also think of Fuel tanks which might be leaking and a structure which is not made to be lain upside down on the ocean floor. So in therms "the government not doing enough" what do they want the government to do? Make the prime minister dive? It must be very hard on all the family's but salvaging this ship and survivors is nothing you can do in a few days, think of Costa Concordia which did not even sink all the way, still working on getting the wreck away almost 3 years after the incident.
I'm just a normal dive instructor not a salvage diver, it's probably more complicated as mentioned.
CGB Spender
I can imagine the feeling of frustration and powerlessness of the related family members having to watch how the government is not doing nearly enough to rescue any possible survivors. Goes to show how unprepared the authorities are for such a disaster.
Hawkeye
Horrible tragedy. Feel so bad for the families waiting to find their child's body and get some closure.