MUM, I LOVE YOU
As hopes fade for missing 300 – heartbreaking final text messages sent to parents by terrified children trapped on sinking South Korean ferry
AS the stricken ferry started to sink beneath the waves, terrified schoolboy Shin Young-jin sent one last text message.
‘Sending this in case I may not be able to say this again,’ he wrote. ‘Mum, I love you.’
Unaware of the unfolding drama, his mother texted back: ‘I love you too, son.’
The boy’s heartbreaking message was one of many that emerged yesterday from children trapped on the South Korean ferry as it capsized and sank on Wednesday.
They were revealed as hopes faded for the almost 300 passengers still missing.
In another harrowing exchange a pupil texted her father, saying: ‘Dad, don’t worry. I’m wearing a life vest and am with other girls. We’re i nside the ship, still in the hallway.’ He replied: ‘Shouldn’t you be
‘It’s dark, women are screaming’
waiting outside? Try to get out if you can.’ But she told him: ‘The ship is too tilted. The hallway i s crowded with so many people.’
Another pupil sent a message to his mother, that read: ‘Can’t see a thing, it’s totally dark. There are few men and women, women are screaming, and we are not dead yet, so please send along this message.’
The brother of passenger Woong Gi tried to reassure him that rescuers were on their way.
‘Keep calm, don’t panic, take your time, stay sharp, and do as they say,’ he wrote. In a further disturb- ing twist yesterday, it was claimed that the ferry’s captain abandoned his passengers by being one of the first to leave the 7,500-ton Sewol as disaster struck.
Lee Joon-seok is said to have got off the ferry just 40 minutes after it appeared to run aground in the Yellow Sea and start to list. It sank little more than an hour later.
Yesterday, he faced further criticism when he was interviewed by reporters as he tried to dry out wet banknotes while sitting on a bed. Wearing a grey hoodie in a bid to hide his face, the captain – who is thought to be in his sixties – told them he felt ‘really sorry for the passengers, victims and their families’ and was deeply ashamed. He added: ‘I don’t know what to say.’
Meanwhile, relatives of the missing – many of them students from a secondary school near Seoul – also claimed that only one of the vessel’s 46 lifeboats was deployed.
Furious parents who had travelled to the southern island of Jindo to be near the scene of the accident were told that passengers had been instructed to stay in their cabins and below decks instead of heading for emergency exits.
One crew member admitted it took 30 minutes for an evacuation order to be issued. By that time, the ship was listing so heavily that those below could not get on to the upper decks.
Even South Korean prime minister Chung Hong-won came under attack as he visited Jindo, when a bottle of water was thrown at him.
One parent screamed: ‘How dare you come here with your chin up? Would you respond like this if your own child was in that ship?’
Passenger Koo Bon-hee, 36, said that more people might have been saved, adding: ‘The rescue wasn’t done well.
‘If people had jumped into the water ... they could have been rescued. But we were told not to go out.’ As the search for survivors continued yesterday, the capsized wreckage of the Sewol lay in 121ft- deep waters just north of Byeongpung island, almost 300 miles from the capital, Seoul.
Hundreds of divers – including South Korean Navy Seals – tried to enter the ship more than a dozen times but were hampered by poor visibility and strong currents.
More than 160 boats and 29 aircraft have been involved in the rescue and recovery attempt.
The loss of the Sewol is likely to become South Korea’s worst maritime disaster for more than 20 years.