By Eunice Kang and Calum MacLeod
April 19, 2014
Photo courtesy of http://www.usatoday.com
The captain of a South Korean ferry that sank off the southwest coast of South Korea this week with hundreds of high school students aboard was arrested early Saturday along with two crewmembers, the Yonhap news agency reports.
The captain, 68-year-old Lee Joon-seok, was jailed on five counts of charges including negligence of duty and violation of maritime law, Yonhap reports.
The exact charges filed against the two crewmembers, who were allegedly operating the ship alone at the time of the accident, were not immediately available.
Prosecutors, in seeking an arrest warrant on Friday, alleged that Lee had left the vessel in charge of two crew members who failed to reduce its speed in a cluster of islands and may have made too sharp a turn that caused it to list.
The ferry, carrying 475 passengers, most of them high school students, went down off the southwest coast of South Korea on Wednesday. Officials say 29 people died and 267 are still missing.
Rescue teams, working in strong current and murky water, got inside the submerged vessel Friday, but did not immediately report finding any survivors.
Meanwhile, the vice principal of the school that arranged the overnight trip was found hanging from a tree, police said, in an apparent suicide. The 52-year-old school official, Kang Min-kyu, was on the island of Jindo, where rescued passengers have taken shelter.
South Korean officials said the ferry, named the Sewol, went down at a point off the coast of Jindo island where it had to make a turn. Prosecutor Park Jae-eok said investigators were looking at whether the 25-year-old third mate ordered a turn that was so sharp it caused the ship to list.
Investigators are focusing on whether the boat, which was running late due to earlier fog, changed course too sharply, shaking cargo and cars loose and thereby shifting the boat off balance, reported South Korean media including the Chosun Ilbo newspaper.