If it is possible for divers to advance to the third steerage? In the wreck of the stricken ferry off the South Korean Jindo hundreds of deaths are suspected. The salvage operations are highly dangerous.

The sky is so deep as a break in the morning already the night. It poured incessantly into the hoods of their rain covers puddles accumulate.

At the quay wall of the village Paengmok is a Buddhist monk in his frock soaked and singing and drumming a prayer out to sea. Behind him praying sister Sarah of the Catholic community, under a black umbrella. The Jindo is full of churches. So dismal as here on the southwestern tip of South Korea breaks this Good Friday, probably in the whole of Christendom not to.

The old man in yellow raincoat goes from one car to another up the quay wall, it looks for men, grab the gas cylinders and large black bags out of their cars. These are the divers. On them the hopes of the Old, whose nephew is one of the over 250 students who went under the ferry “Sewol” rest. It provides all divers have the same question: “Is there still a chance Can my nephew still be saved?”

South Korea Ferry Disaster:”Here, in the third deck, because we want to enter”

Ko Dae Hun, 41, accompanied him to the elevation of the sunken ferry “Sewol” on a wet windshield. 20 km off the coast, at the place where the ship sank on Wednesday, the sea is 37 meters deep. “The rear upper deck,” says Ko to the old man, “that is located on the ocean floor, the bow out of the water because air chambers give the ship a boost.”

Ko painted four floors to his sketch of the lost ship: “Here, in the third deck, because we want to enter, where people could have survived, there might be hope for your nephew..”

But since the accident 48 hours before a diver is yet penetrated into the hull. So far, says Ko, a former combat swimmers of the South Korean Navy, the divers were busy trying to attach ropes and nets on the hull, so that other divers can shimmy down on them. And even this work is constantly interrupted: The tidal range, the difference between high and low tide can be as much at the crash site up to six meters, the Jindo is famous for its spring tides.

South Korea Ferry Disaster:”The water is cold, that is a problem for us”

“We only have half an hour before and after low tide period,” says Ko . Before and after the flow of incoming water from or was so strong that the divers got yourself in danger .

Still, the cause of the accident is not known , but the extreme flow conditions before Jindo , say the divers could have accelerated the sinking of the ferry .

And the flow is only a feature of this sea area , says Lee Tae Won , 60 , also a former naval officer who now leads a team of 30 divers. “We are not here in the Philippines, where one can see several meters through the water. Here everything is muddy , visibility is terrible. And the water is cold , which is a problem not only for the trapped in the hull , but also for us . ”

The construction manager Kim Jae In , 38 , has lost his cousin on the ” Sewol ” . He stands in front on the quay under a plastic tent , on the drums , the rain , and cursed his government. Over two days, they ‘ve only needed to set up a board on which the names of all passengers were registered .

South Korea Ferry Disaster:”I am ashamed to be a Korean”

None of the members know if anybody search for the missing. On Thursday evening, he did not take it anymore, have chartered with 20 other a ship and just be driven out: “It was six clock in the evening, a few boats cruised around the nose cone, no one did anything, we will have to try and send down private divers. ., I am ashamed to be a Korean. ”

South Korea’s rescue divers are more cautious than they were four years ago. Sank in April 2010 – probably hit by a North Korean torpedo – the corvette “Cheonan” and ripped 46 sailors to their deaths. In a rescue attempt, which was also hampered by the strong current, one of the most experienced Navy divers in the country was killed.
“If it goes we will go deeper tonight the third upper deck,” says a colleague of the fight float Ko Dae Hun, “grope our way up into an air chamber before and hopefully find survivors., We go all out with two bottles and two mouthpieces to the water, so that we can bring a survivor with out of the water. ”

But that is only the dwindling hope on this Good Friday. “The reality is that the boat is always unstable in the water and no one knows where it tilts. The worst thing would be if a second followed the first disaster.”

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