Recovery of Sewol ferry
Time to put conflict aside and focus on lessons
The ferry Sewol has finally emerged from the water almost three years after sinking.
The Sewol, which tragically capsized off the southwestern island of Jindo on April 16, 2014, was raised to the surface Thursday in a salvage operation supervised by the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries. The ministry is planning to have the entire ferry lifted in the coming days and transport it to Mokpo Port in South Jeolla Province in time for the third anniversary of the maritime disaster which took more than 304 lives. The nation is beside the families in hoping that the remains of the nine souls that are still missing will be recovered once the ship is out of the water.
Much time has passed since the incident, but controversy lingers over its cause and who should take ultimate responsibility for it. The Sewol sinking became a political issue and opposition parties and family groups have slammed former President Park Geun-hye about her mishandling of it. But the Constitutional Court did not uphold Park’s alleged dereliction of duty on the day of the tragedy as grounds for impeachment in its ruling on March 10. With the recovery of the sunken ferry and the Constitutional Court’s ruling, there should be no more politicizing of the trag- ic affair.
Now is the time to terminate all unnecessary controversy and focus on what the nation can learn from the Sewol tragedy. Because it became so politicized, the essential lessons of the incident, such as promoting safety and disaster prevention have been overlooked. In response to the sinking, the Park administration established the Ministry of Public Safety and Security. But the new ministry was found to be almost useless at protecting citizens in the face of earthquakes and other disasters.
The Park administration also pledged to improve the disaster management system in cooperation with regional governments, but that did not yield visible results either.
It is worrisome that the sunken ferry will be brought to Mokpo Port amid a presidential election period. The next administration should implement effective measures to build a safer country by improving safety awareness and disaster prevention systems.
A special committee to inspect the recovered ship was created earlier this week to investigate the disaster for the next six months. The government should extend its full cooperation to the committee so its investigation will get to the bottom of this tragedy.