Vice-Principal Of S.Korea School In Ferry Disaster Commits Suicide
of a South Korean high school who accompanied hundreds of pupils on a ferry that capsized has committed suicide, police said on Friday, as hopes faded of finding any of the 268 missing alive. The Sewol, carrying 475 passengers and crew, capsized on Wednesday on a journey from the port of Incheon to the southern holiday island of Jeju. Kang Min-gyu, 52, had been missing since Thursday. He appeared to have hanged himself with his belt from a tree outside a gym in the port city of Jindo where relatives of the people missing on the ship, mostly children from the school, were gathered
300 Missing After Korean Ferry Capsizes
the water. Coastguard vessels and fishing boats scrambled to the rescue with television footage showing rescuers pulling passengers in life vests out of the water as their boats bobbed beside the ferry's hull. Other passengers were winched to safety by helicopters. The ferry left from the port of Incheon, about 30 km (20 miles) west of Seoul, late on Tuesday. It sent a distress signal early on Wednesday, the coastguard said, triggering a rescue operation that involved almost 100 coastguard and navy vessels and fishing boats, as well as 18 helicopters. A U.S. navy ship was at the scene