As some 30 high school students lined up to get to an emergency exit while the ship they were on tilted violently, there were no crew members in sight to help direct or evacuate them.
“With no sign of a rescue team, we jumped into the water one by one. But then a wave swamped the exit and 10 other students couldn’t get out of the ship,” said the teenager, one of six Danwon High School students who testified Monday at the trial for the surviving crew members of the Sewol disaster, according to the Korea Herald.
The teenagers testified that they had to help each other, often holding hands and pushing and pulling each other along to try to escape the ferry, which would capsize and leave more than 300 dead or missing. Two-thirds of the Danwon High School sophomore class, who were on a school trip bound for Jeju Island, perished in one of the worst maritime disasters in the nation’s history.
The ferry captain, Lee Joon-seok, and 15 crew members are facing charges ranging from homicide to negligence for leaving their 476 passengers to fend for themselves, according to prosecutors.
In addition to urging the judges to punish the crew members on trial, the students also testified that Coast Guard personnel did not heed their calls to rescue people still on the ferry.
“The Coast Guard officials were on the rubber boat within an arm’s length from the ferry, but they only dragged out people who jumped into the waters,” a female student said, as quoted by the Herald. “I told them that there were many friends waiting to be rescued near the exit, but they only stared at them.”
Another survivor said if the crew had only used the PA system to warn passengers to escape, versus ordering them to stay in their cabins, many more could have survived.
This marked the first time student survivors testified during the trial. The six were allowed to give their testimony in Ansan, where they live and attend school, after the court ruled it might be too traumatic for them to do so in Gwangju, where the trial is taking place—the city is not far the site of the disaster.
Photo of a student survivor of the Sewol disaster entering the Suwon District Court in Ansan, South Korea ( via AP).
