BY NARAE KIM
SEOUL Sun Apr 27, 2014 4:11am EDT
Reuters
(Reuters) – South Korean Prime Minister Chung Hong-won announced his resignation on Sunday over the government response to the ferry disaster, in which it was first announced that everyone had been rescued, focusing attention on poor regulatory controls.
The Sewol ferry sank on a routine trip south from the port of Incheon to the traditional holiday island of Jeju on April 16.
More than 300 people, most of them students and teachers on a field trip from the Danwon High School on the outskirts of Seoul, have died or are missing and presumed dead.
The children on board the Sewol were told to stay put in their cabins, where they waited for further orders. The confirmed death toll on Sunday was 187.
South Korea, Asia’s fourth-largest economy and one of its leading manufacturing and export powerhouses, has developed into one of the world’s most technically advanced countries, but faces criticism that regulatory controls have not kept pace.