Raise the truth along with the ferry
Article: Yoon Lim
Editor: Brian Kang
Designer: Sarah Cho
Editor: Brian Kang
Designer: Sarah Cho
As of Tuesday, April 21, 2015, President Park of South Korea has approved of hoisting the Sewol ferry that sunk beneath the ocean waves, taking 304 lives including high school sophomores, teachers, and other civilians. “Such a recovery effort has never been done before, for its size and weight of the ferry,” says the Minister of Oceans and Fisheries. President Park and the government officials reached a consensus that the safest way to raise the wreck and continue looking for nine missing bodies would be to use a floating dock and cranes. It is estimated that the salvage effort would cost about 200 billion won and a eighteen months of anxious waiting.
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On this very decision, many are raising voices if this is the right way on healing the wounded hearts of the victims and citizens. What will bring a closure to this tragedy?’ From the moment Captain Lee Joon-Seok carelessly allowed students to board the creaky, shabby old ship, not even checking the safety procedures, on a foggy evening of April 16, until today, there are so many questions unanswered. So many bits of the accident have been left out of the story. The citizens, especially families of the victims, deserve the explanation on South Korea’s worst maritime disaster in history.
“Nowadays, people think that they can get away with things if someone isn’t watching, because they know if they follow rule, they may be given a disadvantage,” says Lee Jun-han, a politics professor at University of Incheon. The government seems to have misunderstood the strident cries and urgent pleadings of the victims’ families. Giving compensation, certain services, and guarantees to the family members or punishing Captain Lee Joon-Seok will not mark the end to this. What the family members want is the government and citizens working together, revisiting every policy of social perception and safety, checking and correcting, so that such calamity never occurs again. “If we forget the Sewol tragedy, we cannot have a future.” The family members of the victims want the untainted truth. If the government is planning on raising the sunken Sewol Ferry, they should raise the truth as well, which seems to have sunken along with. |