How the Sewol Ferry Disaster Occurred and What We Learned From It

By Celina Yang

It has been about 6 years since the tragic sinking of the Sewol Ferry occurred. I remember going to many yellow ribbon campaigns with my parents and still have a key ring with a yellow ribbon with the word “We won’t forget” engraved into it. On April 16, 2014, the Sewol Ferry, carrying 476 passengers, including about 250 students from Danwon high school, sank on the way from Incheon to the Jeju islands. Out of the 476 passengers, only 172 survived. The government was highly criticized for the handling of the situation - the captain of the ship told the students to stay where they were and not to move, costing more innocent lives. The captain and crew were able to get out, which definitely contradicts the idea that the captain was supposed to get out last. The government did a very poor job in the rescue mission, and if it was not for the brave locals who took out fishing boats themselves to help the passengers, there would have been a much higher casualty rate. I was at school during the event and when I came home, we watched the news anxiously while my mom went around the house, calling and searching. I don’t really remember clearly, but I do remember going out to the park with yellow candles and helping make yellow ribbons to bring justice for the families and friends of those who have passed.

It is clear that the poor handling of the event was a reflection on the corruption and the lack of preparation of the government for this kind of tragedy. It also reflects on the carelessness of safety measures. It is known that the crew members didn’t check the cargo correctly and were unable to tie the cars, trucks and containers securely with chains, causing the deaths of hundreds of students and passengers and suffering for parents of the students. The event is also believed to have led to the impeachment of the president Park Geun-hye, who was believed to be sleeping during the event and did not take any major action to save the passengers. The president was arrested two years later under several charges, including taking large sums of tax money. At that time, there were still bodies missing. And families of those who have passed had to wait in terrible suffering until a proper investigation was made years later.

This heartbreaking event caused many changes in the government and cargo system in South Korea. And clearly showed the citizens of the majorly flawed law and safety system, at the cost of hundreds of innocent people. And we need to make sure that we never forget this accident and the innocent lives it took, and that this kind of event never happens again.

How the Sewol Ferry Disaster Occurred and What We Learned From It

Eva’s capstone project, described by Eva;

My page is about understanding the social inequalities of shaker heights. Holistically, shaker heights succeeds national standards in

average income, health insurance, and poverty percentage. However, this affluence does not apply to all of our community. IN my

project I use public 202 cencus data to find this divide. I also investigate the history of shaker heights to understand why this has

happened.

Project brief video;

Why explore inequalities of Shaker Heights?

Learn more here; links worth a look!