The families of 10 passengers still officially listed as missing from the sunken ferry Sewol demanded Wednesday that the government come up with a thorough plan to find and recover the bodies.
The call came after a badly decomposed body, presumed to be that of a woman, was found inside the submerged ship Tuesday afternoon, more than six months after the ferry sank in waters off the southwestern island of Jindo, leaving more than 300 people dead in one of the country’s deadliest maritime disasters.
Divers had difficulty lifting out the body from the fourth-deck female bathroom due to fast currents, according to officials from the government’s disaster response team.
“We demand that the government review the search plan for November and come up with a new thorough search plan,” the families said in a press release.
On Monday, the family members said they had voted against recovering the ship and asked the government to continue its search operation.
The outcome of the vote was made public hours after a private diving company announced its decision to pull out of the joint rescue operation with the government and military after three months, citing “various circumstances.”
The 6,825-ton ferry Sewol sank on April 16 en route to the southern resort island of Jeju. Of the total number of people on board, most of whom were high school students, only 174 were rescued. (Yonhap)
