The group was crammed into a dormitory and all were wearing lifejackets, a South Korean Navy officer said.
Some 183 bodies have been recovered from the Sewol, but scores of people are missing, presumed drowned.
The head of the operation to retrieve bodies said on Friday he had "no idea" how long the ship search would take.
There were 476 people on board, with many trapped inside as the ferry listed and sank within two hours of distress signals being sent. A total of 174 passengers were rescued.
Many of those who died or are presumed dead were students and teachers from Danwon high school, south of Seoul.
Furious relatives attacked the speed of the recovery operation on Friday in a confrontation with the fisheries minister and the coastgaurd Chief.
''It's Very Stressful''
In a briefing to reporters on the southern island of Jindo, Navy Captain Kim Jin-Hwang described the difficult conditions that the divers were facing. uard chief.
Retrieving the bodies was far harder than finding them, he said, with divers unable to spend much longer than 10 minutes inside the ship at a time.
"Just imagine a room that is flipped," one of the divers told the Associated Press news agency. "Everything is floating around, and it's hard to know exactly where they are."
On a visit to Seoul on Friday, US President Barack Obama expressed his condolences for South Korea's "incredible loss" and offered America's solidarity.
"So many were young students with their entire lives ahead of them," Mr Obama said. "I can only imagine what the parents are going through at the moment - the incredible heartache."
Officials said rescuers are retrieving around 30 bodies a day but the bereaved families have demanded that all remaining bodies are removed from the ferry before the weekend.
All 15 crew members involved in the navigation of the ill-fated South Korean passenger ferry Sewol are now reportedly in custody, facing criminal negligence charges.
''May God Comfort The Bereaved Families With His Peace and Strength''.
No comments:
Post a Comment