[Aju News DB]
South Korea promised Thursday to complete the massive task by July of raising the passenger ferry that sank two years ago with the loss of more than 300 lives, most of them schoolchildren.
A consortium led by China's state-run Shanghai Salvage Co. has been selected to raise the 6,825-tonne Sewol ferry that sank off the southwestern island of Jindo in April 2014. A total of 295 bodies were recovered, but nine remained unaccounted for.
Work on raising the 145-meter-long vessel will begin next month without cutting its body, Yeon Yeong-jin, a senior maritime ministry official in charge of the salvage operation, told reporters.
"If we are lucky, it will be the world's first case under which such a vessel will be elevated without splitting its body," he said, adding his team would try to complete the operation by the end of July.
Chinese officials, however, conceded that along with a substantial technical challenge, their work has been hampered by a tough environment such as strong currents and limited working hours because the Sewol lies 45 metres down on the seabed.
Wang Weiping, head of the Chinese team at the site, said that divers have closed all openings of the ship to inject air into ten tanks inside and install 30 large airbags and other devices.
Shanghai with a history of receiving good marks for its experience in salvaging sunken vessels has offered to lift the ferry by using a frame built with metal beams on the sea floor instead of drilling holes into its side.
"You should know that our salvage work is very tough ... and we may have to get over more difficulties," Wang said.
The overloaded Sewol was carrying 476 people, including 325 students from the high school in Ansan, when it sank. Only 75 students survived.
At initial salvage operations, strong currents and muddy waters at the site of the sunken vessel left two South Korean divers dead and dozens injured.
The disaster -- blamed on the ship's illegal redesign and overloading left unchecked by regulators -- prompted calls to overhaul the nation's lax safety standards and tackle deep-rooted corruption.
Aju News Lim Chang-won = cwlim34@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
