SEOUL
By Alex Jensen
South Korean officials lifted the death toll to 58 on Sunday in what is expected to become one of the country's worst maritime disasters, as Navy and Coast Guard divers continued to comb the capsized Sewol ferry for a fifth day in improving conditions.
Eighteen more bodies were recovered from the wreck of the boat, which sank Wednesday in waters off South Korea’s southwestern coast. On board the 6,825-ton ferry, travelling from Incheon to the resort island of Jeju, were 476 people, most of them high school students - 244 passengers are still feared to be inside the ship.
The first funerals were held Sunday amid an angry protest involving dozens of families staying at a gymnasium on the island of Jindo, near the site of the sinking.
Cries of “Save my children” could be heard as parents accused officials leading the operation of dishonesty and inaction, scuffling with police officers who blocked them from moving their protest to the presidential office in the country's capital, Seoul.
Family members of the missing have demanded answers to a series of unanswered questions from South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Prime Minister Chung Hong-won as they made personal visits to Jindo in recent days.
The captain of the ferry and two of his crew were arrested Friday, accused of steering the ship into trouble and delaying the ship’s evacuation before they made their own escape.
Investigators are also yet to discover whether the Sewol hit an object underwater as speculation continues over the cause of a reported thud before it capsized.
The last major South Korean ferry disaster was in 1993, when 292 of the 362 passengers on board a ferry in the Yellow Sea in North Jeolla Province died when it sank. The accident was the first major ferry disaster in the country since 1970, when 323 people died on board a ferry that sank while travelling from Busan to Jeju.
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