#261: The Sewol Ferry Tragedy - Coward Captain Left 350 Students To Die In A Sinking Ship

28:17One student texted his mom, please, if I don't survive, mom and dad I love you another one texted his parents mom dad younger sister I love you guys so much and please don't ever let my little sister go on a school trip ever these are some of the kids last words so key points they're told to stay in their cabin they're told not to evacuate or come to the deck they also noticed that some of the zippers on many of the life vests were broken Not only that, but one of the boys said, I just discovered something really horrible. He says this on camera. This life vest says it was made in 1994. Here, look, it's written in the back.

29:00Made in 1994. They didn't even have enough life vests to go around. So a lot of the kids were sacrificing life vests to each other and to their friends. They were asking if the teachers and the girls all had life vests. The videos were captured on King Dong-yup's phone, and he would not make it out alive. So while this is the situation inside the boat, mainstream media at the same time, like imagine this is happening at the same time. Please, just the irony of all of this. Mainstream media starts reporting that all passengers have been rescued. It sounds stranger than fiction. I don't even know how to explain to you what they thought that they were going to get out of this, what the politicians thought was going to happen when this all came out to be lies and false.

29:45but it's insane if this happened in a movie it'd be unbelievable there were reports that all passengers were rescued tanwan high school parents let out a sigh of relief oh my god okay that cryptic text my child is fine they're probably not responding to my text or my calls because they're probably on like a coast guard vessel right now and they're busy but that's fine they start noticing something fishy though they're trying to get in contact with their children no responses they contact other parents and they're like no we also haven't gotten any responses and when they watch the news very carefully the numbers aren't adding up and it's not like some sort of conspiracy but the government would report that they rescued all the passengers then a little bit later they'd be like okay well we have rescued majority of the passengers then it'd be like oh and these are not the exact figures but it would be something like we rescued 200 passengers and then later they'd be like we rescued 150 passengers so which one is it?

30:40Who are you rescuing? How do you unrescue people? You're a powerful nation and you can't even do basic arithmetic. Like what's going on? So frustrated, the parents, they start traveling to Jindo Island. Now Jindo Island is the closest island to where the crash happened. Not Jeju Island. Jindo Island is very close to the southern tip of South Korea. Jeju Island, you'd have to go further out into the Yellow Sea. The parents all decide to use the Jindo gym to be their coordination place. And I truly don't even know how to explain what I'm going to say next. But first of all, the people organizing this gym to make sure everyone is in the right place were the parents of the children on the boat.

31:20They arrived. There's no organization. It's chaos. So they take it upon themselves to make sure everything is organized, not the coast guards, not the local officials, the police, the parents take charge. The rescue teams had these giant whiteboards on the front with a list of names of passengers who have been rescued. And of course, parents are flocking and praying and wishing that it's their child on the list. But these families are getting frustrated. One parent grabs a mic and says, here, I can clearly see my younger sister's name on the list of survivors. It says she was rescued, but my sister isn't here.

31:56So where is my sister? Who on earth made this list? Another parent screamed, please just get us a boat so we can save our kids get us a boat we don't care how much it costs i will pay for it another one said i feel like the parents including myself are here waiting for our children to die we want an answer from the person in charge why are orders not going through and nothing's being done you guys are clearly lying and kicking responsibility to others another parent screams let's all go together let's all go together the parents are rushed to the harbor and to show you how they still had this unfailing hope of a parent, they all grabbed blankets on the way out.

32:35They said when their kid gets saved, they want to make sure that they have something to keep them warm. So they all go to the harbor and they wait. There is nothing that they can do. Side note, police were lined up at the edge of the harbor to prevent family members from going into the water, whether to try and rescue a kid or in a desperate attempt. A parent screamed, I want to jump in the water with them. My loved one is under the water. Anger is not enough. If I don't have my younger child, I'm going to jump in the water thinking about my child in the water. How can I as a parent continue to live, eat and drink?

33:11I hate myself. Someone near a mom tried to put one of the blankets on one of the moms because it was so cold and she cried, what good is it staying warm when the kids are freezing out there? They're freezing. What good is it for us to stay warm? Not a single government official was at that harbor. Nobody responded to the family's frustrations or questions. Wait, this is nighttime? Yeah. It's been a day? It's been a day. We're going to go back into the rescue. Just you wait. Oh my God. Yeah. So again, I mean, the families resorted to asking reporters on what's going on, but none of the reporters, most of the reporters at the harbor at this point were mainstream media reporters.

33:52The only ones there that actually cared about helping the parents instead of just getting their tears on camera was Nustapa, which is why I think a lot of parents continue to work with Nustapa. These are some of the most devastating clips I've seen. I mean, just the desperation in these parents, like their grief, their worry, their anger. And so many of them, it's a lot. So let's talk about the rescue because you mentioned, like, how is this nighttime? So the rescue that government officials and media said was a success was not a success at all. The Coast Guard helicopter was dispatched to the sinking ferry at 9.10 a.m.

34:29They arrive at around 9.30 a.m. Two rescuers come down and rescue six passengers via helicopter. And these passengers were like on the deck. So they're like waving. They're visible. They're outside. Now, at 9.32, the helicopter starts communicating with the Blue House. And the Blue House is like the White House. And they keep asking, is the situation serious? The helicopter says, The ferry is tilted and currently being flooded. It hasn't sunken yet. Can you please send over a video? Now, this is being heavily criticized because time is of the essence. Such an urgent incident is taking place. And really, I don't know what to say because it casually feels like the Blue House is saying, Pixar, it didn't happen.

35:10And sure, maybe videos can help them get a better understanding of what's going on. But if this is the government responsible for running a literal company, they better be more competent than this. they keep calling back to the helicopter not giving commands not doing a full-scale command center operation but going did you send the videos yet just non-stop over and over and over again wasting time asking for videos and what's even crazier is that the helicopter is like well we didn't want to take any videos in case it gets leaked but the blue house is like it's fine text it to my phone the blue house is basically like okay well we're gonna hang up just call us back when you get the footage.

35:50Oh, this isn't even, this is like the smallest thing the Blue House messes up. So just you wait. I mean, a president was indirectly impeached because of this incident. So soon after this, the Coast Guard patrol vessel 123 arrives at the ferry. They throw over a raft and they head to the ferry to start their little rescue. Just anytime I say rescue, don't think of it as a rescue. Think of it in quotations because it's just a bunch of people acting busy. The first people to step into this rescue raft are the captain and crew members. Not all, but a few. They're like, I'm out. Yeah, they're like, bye.

36:24They have abandoned the ship. But then so does the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard, the vessel, distances itself from the ferry and they try not to enter the ferry, get close to the ferry. They don't try anything. Meanwhile, there's about three helicopters that are just circulating, that are just loitering the area, watching. What's the deal? What's the problem then? No one's giving them any commands. So they're all clueless on what the hell's going on. Yeah. And the captain is like just staying silent. Yeah. And then the Blue House is like, well, we can't tell you what to do unless we get a clear HD 4K video.

36:56And then all these other authorities like the Coast Guard, the Mokpo Coast Guard, the Jindo authorities, they're like, well, we don't know what to do. Have you tried calling the Blue House? Wow. So everyone's just waiting around. And what's crazy is that there was a U.S. Navy vessel that was nearby that rushed to the scene. And they're like, hey, we can help. and the U.S. Navy is so equipped. This vessel had 100 Marines on there. 100 Marines. I'm just letting you know right now, if I'm ever anywhere, I want Marines to save me. And South Korea was like, it's fine, we're waiting on a video. The government shut them down?

37:38Yeah, the government was like, it's fine, we're handling it. Oh my God. Yeah.

37:48I'm going on a little side note, but another rant. The U.S. Marines, the U.S. vessel, the Navy vessel, actually had helicopters on the vessel and they had launch pads. So basically, they didn't have to go back to land to bring survivors. They could just go back and forth to their vessel that's parked very close to the sinking ferry so they could save an insane number of survivors. One or two helicopters could just do nonstop back and forth in such short time. we're gonna dive into the u.s navy later because there's a lot of yeah a lot of stuff there now anyways these are not leisure helicopters either the helicopters that are circulating the ferry are coast guard helicopters and they make no additional effort so they saved six people initially that's it they make no additional efforts to rescue anyone they later claim that they had no idea that there were passengers inside they thought the rescue was over and they were just surveilling the sinking of the ferry.

38:41To sum it up, the rescue teams were just rescuing anyone that comes to the deck where you can visibly see them, but every single passenger was told to stay in their cabins. Oh my God, I cannot even imagine what that captain was going through at that moment. But we can't even imagine it because I don't think any of us have such little empathy for human life. Yeah, like when he got out, does he think that all the kids are going to come onto the deck eventually? or does he think the coast guard's gonna break in yeah is he knowingly making a decision like whatever i just gotta save myself let them die okay my speculation is probably the last one because i imagine if rescue efforts were made he would be the last one rescued because that's kind of how it is in maritime communities but maybe he thought there is a bigger chance he might die because i don't know what he was thinking genuinely i can't even guess so no one is saving anyone unless they're visibly out on the deck, like waving their arms around in these bright red life jackets.

39:41Like I said, the problem is nobody was told to come out onto the deck. The helicopters again claimed that they had no reason to believe that there were passengers inside. One helicopter coast guard officer, even during an interview complains, you know, rescue is hard because you tell a person that you're rescuing to watch their step and they don't watch their step, even if you tell them to. A new step is like, that's not the point here. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the fact that you circled around the sinking ferry and made no attempts to save anyone. They're like, we didn't know there was anyone to save.

40:17It's like, why would you even bring that up? It's so bizarre. Nobody asked. Now, the annoying part is the helicopters that are circulating were talking separately with the blue house. The giant vessel from the coast guard was speaking separately with the blue house, as well as the Coast Guard. There was no coordination. It seemed like everything was all hell breaks loose. Nobody knows what they're doing. Blue House is still asking for videos and the only people that do something to save human lives. Do you see all these little boats that are going so close to this capsizing ferry, which is very dangerous to do.

40:50And if you guys are not watching the video version, these tiny little boats, they look like giant canoes with an engine. There's no room. it's just like a little canoe boat those are civilian boats and fishermen they are the ones that took action they are risking their lives pulling up straight next to this capsizing ginormous ferry and it's very dangerous to get that close to a boat that's capsizing especially with boats like this and they're pulling people out of the water one of the fishermen, Hyun, in the blue boat he said he saw the boat listing to one side from afar and he realized that it wasn't balancing itself back out so he rushes over he starts rescuing passengers that were jumping into the cold water and he said it was hell it was agonizing there were a lot of people not enough boats the people in the water are yelling for help the ferry was sinking fast he said he had no idea of how many people he saved but he was told he saved about 25 people he said but i don't know for sure.

41:55The people that were trapped inside the ferry couldn't come out. They were just trapped inside the ferry. If everyone was saved, maybe I would feel proud of myself. But there's grieving parents out there, so how can I feel proud? Even though he's one of the civilians saving passengers, while the Coast Guard is doing nothing, he lives with guilt for not saving everyone. What's frustrating is when the ferry starts to list, if the captain had ordered everyone to put on a life jacket and get to the dock where they're visible the likelihood of every single person surviving was incredibly high the amount of vessels nearby not just civilian boats and fishermen but the coast guard ships the u.s navy vessels i mean the the resources of that u.s navy vessels like i said multiple helicopters landing decks of the helicopters over a thousand marines ready to assist in air sea rescue a thousand a thousand sorry did i say a hundred you say a hundred a thousand a thousand marines that's how big the u.s navy vessel was wow one thousand marines and i know i'm american so it might not mean anything because it's just patriotism but if i'm in the water somewhere i want these marines to save me and america and korea are on really good terms so i don't know why they declined for help but a lot of people think it's president park was known to have a big ego and was very very self-conscious about international relations but not in the way that you want your president to be.

43:19Not in the way of like, oh, of course we want good international relations, but want it to look good is all she cared about. So the US Navy vessel just loitered around waiting to be used at any given moment. They're like waiting to be called in because it'd be a shit show if they just went in there. But the call never came. The rescue could have been so successful and these Marines are specifically trained in air-sea rescue. No way. The Korean Coast Guard, they were more like patrol people. They patrol to make sure that there's no illegal fishermen from other countries fishing in their seas. Most of the Korean Coast Guard was on a job to look for illegal Chinese fishermen.

44:02Literally, that was their job. So the U.S. Navy, why were they not used? I still don't understand. One thing that you notice that's a problem is that all of these officials who get paid by the state, by government tax dollars that the civilians pay. They don't want to be the ones to make the call. They don't want to be the ones held accountable. So everyone keeps pushing responsibility onto each other. And that's what resulted in so many of these different vessels and helicopters just waiting around while people are dying. But there are heroes in this story. So do you remember the first emergency call made was by a student, Chui?

44:36He stayed on the phone with emergency services, trying to give them the exact location of the sinking ferry. so then they should know there's kids in there yeah but um yeah exactly he tried to give the exact location because again i don't know why this was such a problem i don't know how they didn't know where the exact location was but remember the two and a half hour delay i guess they were thinking the boat was near closer to jeju because they didn't factor in the delay but they were closer to jindo island so it was it was a mess and chue he was sad that he wasn't able to call his parents. The information that he was able to provide to authorities was very crucial.

45:17Che's body was found and his parents were really confused because, you know, a lot of these other kids, they all had cell service and they called their parents, but they never got a call from their son. They were later told that he was the one on the phone with emergency services. And they said, you know, it made sense. We're just so proud of him. And we think that God brought our boy into this world for this purpose, to try and save people. While Captain Lee and a few of the other crew members escaped, there were some crew members who refused. Park Ji-yeon, Jung Hyun-sun, and Kim Ki-won. They stayed aboard the ferry to help the students.

45:55All three went down with the sinking boat. Park Ji-young was the youngest part-time worker of the crew. She was just 22 years old. I mean, she's barely older than these high school students. two years prior to this her father passed away and her mom didn't have enough money so she dropped out of school and started working she was one of the first to have an easy escape she was like near the dock she could hear the kids though and the PA system was still telling them to stay put so she runs to the ship took off her life jacket gave it to a younger kid nearby who didn't have one and like I said she's basically a kid herself she starts stumbling running as fast as she can through the halls and yells for the students to evacuate.

46:38She's handing out life jackets. She tells them to jump ship. She guides some 50 students to the civilian fishing boats who lift them out of the water and into the boat. One survivor remembers grabbing Park's arm and saying, okay, just come jump in the water with us. Like you don't have a life jacket, but I'm going to hold your arm. And she said, after saving you guys, after saving the rest of them, I'll get out. Crew goes out last. And then she just disappeared again to save more kids. She kept going and the last time someone saw her alive was going deeper into the water where it was already chest level to see if there were more students.

47:14Her body was later found floating face down, still no life jacket. Even in her last moments, she never wore one because there wasn't enough life jackets for both passenger and crew. Two other crewmates, Jung Hyun-sun and Kim Ki-won, they refused to escape with cowards they wanted to save the kids Cheong and Kim also could have been very easily rescued but they decided to go back down and help the children they were both 28 and they were actually getting married later that year to each other their bodies were later found as well and they had spent their last moment saving children these three part-time crew members would formally be recognized by the government as national martyrs because it was just such a stark contrast to the captain and the crew.

48:04I mean, most of the crew who were among the first to abandon the ship. Young Dae-hong was another crew member that went down with the ship. He's 45 years old and he called his wife and he told her, this is where you need to find the savings for our teenage son's college tuition, okay? And when she tried to plead with him, he told her, I love you, but I can't talk. I have to go save the kids. His body was found a month later And his face was unrecognizable And there was a walkie-talkie found near him Sooyoung was a young teacher And it was her second year teaching at Tanwon High She was very young And it was her first year on the school field trip When the boat started sinking, she texted her mom Mom, the ship is sinking Her mom called her and was like, hurry, put on a life vest And she responded calmly Mom, the students are all wearing life vests indicating there weren't any more for her.

48:58She texted her boyfriend after this and said, I'm sorry, there's no more life vest. Thank you, and I love you. And he calls her and she says, I can't, I'm sorry, my battery is low and some of the students still need to call their parents. Her last words were, I love you, thank you to her boyfriend. Another teacher was Ko Jangsook and Mr. Ko was a PE teacher. He was a PE teacher for the last decade. And at his old job, before he got to Tanwon, there was actually a fire in the school. And he was given like an award by the school because he ran in head on into the fire to save students from the burning fire.

49:38He also went down. And I mean, there was no question what he was going to do. He was going to save the kids. He left behind a loving wife and two sons. His body actually wouldn't be recovered until three years after the incident. there was a memorial service held for him and a student came and said Mr. Ko could have escaped early but he stayed to take care of us until the very end so these are all heroes and it's not really a heartwarming story though where you feel good in the end you're like yes the hero won because nobody wins there's like way too many villains in this one to even get close to the number of heroes there's another story though on the boat where a 60-year-old girl, this reminds me of Itaewon, but a 60-year-old girl was there with her parents and her seven-year-old brother.

50:26So they were part of the passengers that were going on vacation to Jeju. She was passed one by one from adults to the water to one of the fishermen's boats, all the way. Her parents and her seven-year-old brother would all perish. Everyone worked to get this girl to safety and she would be the youngest survivor of Sewol. Now, civilians were the only hope for these children because of the government, the authorities, they were doing nothing. Like I said, most of these boats saving these people are civilians, fishermen, commercial fishermen, just regular citizens, not government workers. But many civilian divers who saw the news said they were gearing up to volunteer as rescuers.

51:09These are like professional divers who have been doing this that want to volunteer to save these kids. They know the dangers. They're gearing up. They're coming from Seoul and all these places. But then the news, the news starts flooding that everyone has been rescued. So they're like, oh, OK, I guess I don't have to go. Like, why would I go into the water if everyone's already rescued out of the water? And it wasn't until hours later, there were these like rumors and these kind of like fishy things that these volunteer divers were even picking up on. Because, you know, these are people who know how to dive.

51:38And the way that the news was reporting these rescues just didn't sound right. So they're like, why don't I just head to Jindo Island and see what's going on? Maybe they need me. Maybe they don't. I mean, at least I can try, right? So many precious hours were lost because these civilian divers didn't go at the time because, I mean, nobody's blaming the civilian divers here. They're risking their lives to save others. But the fact that they thought everyone had been rescued, it's just so frustrating how grossly mishandled this was. Many of the civilian divers, they volunteered and they started arriving around 4 p.m.

52:13that day. The boat started sinking at like 9 a.m. They got there around 4 p.m. and they were told to report to a command ship of the Coast Guard that was stationed near the ferry. So these volunteer divers, they don't come to play. They're suiting up, gearing up, mentally preparing themselves. But the Coast Guard is not letting them do their jobs. One of the civilian divers said it was bizarre. I was being walked around this Coast Guard vessel. Like, come here, let me introduce you to my colleague. Oh, and this is my captain here. Oh, and then this is my senior colleague. What did you say your name was?

52:46How long have you guys been diving? Ah, yeah. Oh, that's cool. Oh, you know, my colleague is from that area. Do you want to come to the cafeteria? They prepared ramen. This is not an exaggeration. The rescue diver said they prepared ramen and he was so disgusted. He just didn't understand. He saw some of the top dogs aboard this command ship. Two star Navy officers, chief of the Coast Guard, chief of the West Coast Coast Guard, the chief of the Mokpo Coast Guard, fancy suits and shoes, tip-tapping away on their laptops. Wait, I'm confused. Like they're not sending people down the water? No. That's what they're doing.

53:24Just tip-tapping on their laptops. The ramen was even brought into the conference room for these chiefs to eat. and the diver that was interviewed said he wished he could have recorded the video of these chiefs just digging into these noodles like pigs. They said they ate the ramen noodles, had a meeting for five minutes, and then the chiefs were like, well, we got other places to be, so bye. He was sickened to see that the chief of the West Coast Guard went to a press conference like immediately after this, the whole ramen debacle, in his uniform with all of his badges and stated, as of today, 164 vessels, 24 aircraft, 178 special rescue workers are doing our best in conducting a search of the area.

54:05The civilian diver had no words, just no words, but he's not alone. Many of the civilian divers came forward anonymously later to say that the Coast Guard would not let them do their job. And it wasn't even a job, they're volunteering. just wouldn't let them do it it was just non-stop like oh come meet my colleague oh are you sure that's up to code your your diving suit are you sure what is it made out of they're like what is your deal let us go save some children right now so the parents now remember how the parents wanted to rent a boat to go out to see for themselves and to save their children Well, the very first day, a group of the parents do rent a boat and they go to report back to the others what's going on.

54:50And when dad screamed, they told us civilians can enter the water, but the Coast Guard can't. What is this? What? They're basically saying, oh, you want to dive in and get your kid? Dive in and get your kid. But we can't. He's screaming, what is this? What like what is this? The civilian diver, one of the civilian rescue divers had volunteered to go on the boat with them. and he was explaining like with these conditions, the Coast Guard should be going in. The conditions are calm. This is like optimal rescue conditions right now. Earlier that day, civilian fishermen would try to break windows to save people, but the Coast Guard said, no, we can't do that.

55:28So they can't break windows. They can't go into the ferry before it sinks to save people. And now that part of the ferry is sunken, they can't try to rescue people by diving. They can't do anything. What are you doing? Why do you exist? Why do you have a job? A reporter asked a parent who saw the ferry sinking and said, and what are the Coast Guard doing right now? And he says, as of right now, there is nothing they're doing. And he falls to the ground sobbing. April 16th was the morning the boat started listing. Okay, now at 10.52, reporters went out to the scene and still nothing was being done.

56:0410.52 p.m. You're saying 14 hours later, the boat's still sinking? Yeah, it's still actively sinking. and this is like you need to dive in. So what happens on these boats is time is of the essence. Of course, the golden hour was the first hour and a half that the boat even started listing way in the morning at like 9 a.m. when the captain was like, tell everyone to stay in their cabins. That was golden hour. Almost everyone could have been saved had they just gotten to the deck. They would have been saved, okay? Now, the next golden time was considered the next 72 hours because there's actually a phenomenon that's quite common where there's air pockets inside of boats.

56:43So these divers need to go in and get these people inside of these air pockets. So if you're in a room where no water has seeped in, which is sometimes possible, you're alive. You have about 72 hours. So these divers need to get down there and hope that there's a lot of air pockets. Yeah, yeah. Even if there's one person, they should be doing everything. Yes, yes. This is how still and calm the water was. Where are all the Coast Guard vessels? Where are the divers? this should be lit up like a command center. This should be lit up like the 4th of July. It's the most peaceful water. There's no waves, really.

57:17Nothing. No one's out there. Meanwhile, during - What is going on? Exactly. During press conferences, the Coast Guard made it seem like it is pure chaos out there with our rescue efforts. We've got how many ships? How many people? Oh, you guys, South Korea, just you wait. Coast Guard's got you. They said the water was as calm as a lake. There wasn't a single wave, but nothing was being done. You could still see the ferry. It hadn't fully capsized yet. There were no rescue efforts. I mean, imagine the anger of the parents seeing that and they can't do anything for their children. They were yelling at their boat to the Coast Guard.

57:50Do something! They screamed, they're alive! They're alive! You have to rescue them! The Coast Guard never responded. All they did was circle the sailor ferry over and over. What's their excuses now? They said that they had to like survey the area. that's like the thing that they constantly say in this whole tragedy is they needed to survey the conditions they needed to make sure they could go in i don't get it who's who's in charge who's saying what i'm so confused about this coast guard official is saying a different thing but all of them have the same message of we're doing everything we can but nobody's doing anything okay so it sounds like there's someone from the top not letting them do something right so it's speculated it's not that they were not letting them do something but they had no idea how to do anything so the korean coast guard was not trained for search and rescue they can dive in and yeah people so they're like we're probably gonna die so they were allegedly just telling the blue house whatever you're suggesting we do we're not capable we can't do it then where's the capable people where's that but they didn't say we're not capable they're like conditions won't let us the condition is too bad so then i don't think south korea would then go to the u.s and be like hey the condition is too bad y 'all get in there because you're saying they the south korea didn't have anyone else they can pull from that's what it made it seem like or a lot of them okay so a lot of these politicians it was like a balancing game they want help but their reputations depend on them not asking for help whether it's from different departments in korea whether it's civilian rescue divers whether it's the u.s navy they did not want to ask for help but they themselves did not have the competency to do the search and rescue but they couldn't admit to that so they're all just like shifting blame around so for president park i imagine it's embarrassing that you don't have a team of qualified people to do search and rescue in your whole nation like imagine the u.s navy fucked up this bad you don't think america would be like I guess we're not a cool powerful nation.

59:55i guess we're ass yeah so i guess it's just a lot of like reputation control and none of these coast guard officials wanted to be the one to do it because there's like five different coast guards that's another huge problem it's not like oh just u.s navy okay because then you have a top dog that's like okay well if the president doesn't want to do anything i gotta at least do something right but there's like the mokpo coast guard the coast guard of the west coast the regular coast guard there's so many people involved that they're like well let's just see if they do something because what if we do it and we fuck it up that it's on us so we just wait like they want to do something they can do it so they're all bystanders they're all bystanders they care more about their reputation and their careers yeah the parents are screaming what are you doing you need to do something get in the water and they even screamed i'm not saying this is easy work but you need to at least show that you're trying.

1:00:48There are survivors in that ship. What is wrong with you? It's so heartbreaking because a dad on the boat tries to jump into the water and everyone tries to stop him. And what's crazy about this is that the Coast Guard official documents report that they were doing underwater rescue efforts at that exact time that the parents are out there watching them. There was no such thing. So how do your reports say that you were doing intensive underwater rescue. They stated that they did rescue all night long, but all they did was get on a little boat and circle the capsizing ferry. At one point, one of the coast guards drives up close to it and just like knocks on the ferry.

1:01:27It's like, and the parents are like, a parent who saw that said, I can't believe I was inches away from my child and all I could do is helplessly watch him die. So the parents, the reporters on this boat that saw this, they saw the discrepancy of no actual rescue efforts being done. They recorded videos of it, sent it to all the major news network. So the reporters on there were a lot of trusted reporters by parents. Did you know at first the parents were allowed a boat out there by the Coast Guard and it was filled to the brim with mainstream media news reporters? There wasn't enough room for parents.

1:02:02The parents forcibly like kicked them out. But just the disgust that these media reporters were like, well, I know that we said two seconds ago that we already rescued everyone but like can i go take some more pictures out there so their trusted reporters went out with them and they sent all of these videos to mainstream major news networks not a single one of them aired it not a single one of them talked about the discrepancy because they were under president park president park was known as a very very fascinating woman who loved to bully reporters and mainstream news medias that was her thing so they're like this makes her look bad so we can't post it yeah because then we're gonna be on her shit list that was the very first day and night of rescue efforts that's all they did nothing i mean they did nothing the next day april 17th it doesn't get any better there is still no control tower no organized operation nobody has one person that they're really reporting to even the president president park she was mia for the first seven hours of the incident she was nowhere to be found.

1:03:07We're going to get to it later. So the president and the prime minister, they visit the area in Jindo Island where the parents are gathered. Apparently a boatload of politicians, lawmakers, and parents had gone out on a boat to go visit the Coast Guard and parents were disgusted. I wish I was eloquent. I wish I could describe to you what kind of emotion that must have been. But the parents said they stood there and they watched the Coast Guard point at maps. They watch the politicians in suits go, hmm. It was like watching people pretend to do a job. It was like watching a skit. They felt like they were losing their minds.

1:03:45The Coast Guard is saying things that they know are not true. Like, oh, we worked so hard last night to do underwater rescue. They're pointing at random maps, pointing at pictures of inside this Hawar Ferry. parents get on into the dock of the coast guard vessel and they see divers go under the surface of the water kind of like flap around for five minutes and then come back out they said it's like a sick joke like everyone's pretending like i imagine i would want to shake someone by their shoulders like hello can you wake up like there's people dying the parents decide that they can't trust anyone so they start their own task forces and have coordinated group chats to relay information in a clean and orderly fashion.

1:04:28They were more informed than the Coast Guard. One parent actually confronts a government official who tells him, we were doing rescues all night. The parent gets in his face and says, stop lying and manipulating the news and tell me, look me in the eye and tell me you were doing rescues all night. The government official seems shocked and tries to grab his phone and call someone like, oh, we were, we were. The government officials actually seem shocked that the parents have such up-to-date information. I guess they didn't think that the parents would be that coordinated like parents would call them out for every single discrepancy and they were shocked and every single one of them has the same reaction they're saying something so confidently we we rescued this many people oh this is what we've been doing the parent confronts them with their lies they all grab their phone and call someone one of the parent literally goes why are you lying to me we have our parents on a boat out there i just talked to them that is a blatant lie the government official goes and and they were at the coast guard boat oh and he grabs his phone oh yeah despicable yeah despicable now at that moment the prime minister shows up at the jindo gym and he's second in charge to the president in this country i guess nobody informed him that the parents are not in the dark on all of this that the parents are not going to be like, thank you, Prime Minister, for your efforts all night long.

1:05:50Because I think he walked in expecting some things and questions, but instead he was chased down and had water bottles thrown at his face. Open water bottles, which I think is symbolic in hindsight. In the end, police protected him and escorted him out. President Park Geun-hye also visited with this whole entourage of security and politicians. Parents were a bit more receptive to her because at the end of the day, this is the most powerful person in the nation. If anyone is going to help them, it's going to be her. So even if they hate her, they can't show it. But they were let down once more.

1:06:23She stated, I just went to the rescue team and I want to assure you guys all the government mobilized all resources and personnel to retrieve the victims. The Coast Guard chief also goes up next to the president and claims that he has sent 500 divers to the rescue. The parents know that this is a blatant lie. They are enraged. They start screaming at the chief of the Coast Guard. and side note, there's video of this and President Park doesn't even seem surprised that the parents are screaming at his lies almost as if she knows very well herself that those are blatant lies. Because I imagine if I'm the president and my chief just lied to me, I'd be like, hmm, why are they booing that?

1:07:02But she looks like she was expecting it. Family said they were straight up stunned at the blatant lies that were being shoved in their face. It was unbelievable. Also, Park Ghani starts using this as an opportunity to say shit that nobody cares about. Like their kids are still out there. They want rescue teams. And she states, so what we're going to do with this is this is an opportunity to conduct a thorough investigation on the cause of the accident and severely punish those involved. That's not what anyone is talking about right now. That was the whole second day of the rescue. The second most valuable day.

1:07:35That's how it went. The third day, April 18th, a lot of developments took place and none of them were good. The Zhaewar ferry was now fully submerged. Parents went out and they couldn't see the boat anymore and they cried. Government also let a private company step in for rescue efforts. A company called Undyne started to lead the rescue attempts, but it was more of a recovery attempt. It was like a half rescue, half recovery. So there's still a chance that you can live 72 hours in an air pocket, but it was guesstimated that most of the bodies being retrieved would be dead, so it'd be a recovery attempt.

1:08:08Now, they sucked. Undyne sucked so bad. I think that this was just like a government contract bid that won. I don't even understand how they were in control of this. Now, the idea from the get-go was the Coast Guard or someone, since the Coast Guard is useless, would inject air into this Heor Ferry. This is going to help with multiple things. It would hopefully improve its buoyancy. And this is very important because if the boat is fully submerged in water, it's going to start sinking and divers cannot be in there when it's sinking to the bottom. so they need it to somewhat still be near the surface of the water makes it easier for rescue or recovery and if there is human life injecting air could create like help those air pockets survive longer that's what undine was here to do the coast guard couldn't do it clearly so undine is here they should have done this like first thing when rescue started but they didn't have the the coast guard didn't have the tools so on the third day they're like we're bringing in a private sector okay we're bringing in the private sector undine's gonna do this and undine comes in with these massive air compressors they're old they're industrial use not compatible with human life meaning if you injected this into a room you'd probably kill the people in the room the air is like auto gas air and they're super old and outdated i mean you what but undyne marine shows up with these compressors like with their full chest they're like yeah these are the ones Like, are you not even ashamed?

1:09:37Not only do they not have the proper equipment, but they also don't have the experience. Again, the U.S. Navy was nearby and offered their assistance once more. They said, we have new compressors and we also have qualified professionals that utilize these compressors and have done rescue efforts such as this one. They were denied. South Korea said, thank you, though. But no. this day also marked the first discovery or recovery of bodies three bodies were recovered by civilian divers but mainstream media said all of it was due to undine undine recovered these bodies and that makes me so mad because these civilian divers gave up a lot to help they were not part of the navy or the coast guard they were moms and dads corporate employees professional divers in other industries they were stay-at-home parents the only thing that these divers had in common was that they liked to dive, they were good at it, and they wanted to help people.

1:10:34So they left their homes and their families to drive to this southern part of Korea to do the most important dive of their lives. Many of these civilian divers would end up permanently injured, paralyzed, traumatized, depressed, and some would even lose their lives because of this dive. They told each other, minimize shock when you're down there. Shock is no good for anyone. What does that mean? The divers all made a pact to not look the students in the eye. Because once you do that, you will never be the same. And it will make it harder for you to go back down underwater. They talked about how it was the hardest thing.

1:11:11The ones that drowned, they would have to recover their bodies, right? So their families could put them to rest. But there was so much debris in the water. Because think about this big ship. There's so much things falling apart. walls were collapsing and the hallways became as like narrower than your shoulder width. A lot of them had to squeeze through hallways. Bad weather delayed the use of a diving bell. So they had to use these super flimsy, flexible air hoses. But if they're twisting and turning in there, it could easily snap, break, or it could be folded to a point where they're not getting air anymore.

1:11:44It could get caught in things. It was very, very dangerous. They had to go down in teams of three and they would never forget the things they saw. There were bodies in life jackets floating around in the ship now and the divers had to reach up, grab the bodies and hug them so that they wouldn't keep floating up. They would find a window that they could break and get rid of all glass and debris. Then they would carefully push the body through the open window so that they could float to the surface. If a body was found without a life jacket, two divers, one diver would have to wrap their arms around this dead body, and the second diver would have to pull them through a rope to the surface.

1:12:25The divers said they found many of the students hugging each other, holding each other, or tied together. They said how hard it must have been for those kids. With the cold water rushing in and the darkness coming over them, I thought to myself, why did I even offer to volunteer with this if I can't even save one life? Most of the students had broken fingers. They tried till their very last moment to break the doors or windows to escape, breaking their fingers in the process. After seeing this, a lot of divers would never be the same. Kim Sang-ul, one of the civilian divers, said he was at home when he watched the news and his diver buddies called him up and was like, you need to get here now, we need to save some kids.

1:13:10So he drove hours from his house in Seoul to the southern coast. He spent two months away from his family, risking his life to squeeze into these small openings, these dangerous conditions, I mean, to find bodies. They worked in three-hour shifts. He did it for two months? Two months. Three hours of rest, three hours of diving, three hours of rest. But like the other divers, he was having a hard time resting no matter how exhausted he was. The stress of the dives wrecked his body. The anxiety wrecked his body. finding these water-bloated corpses of children. He said he could never get that image out of his mind and he had nightmares anytime he closed his eyes.

1:13:47He said we were touching each of these children with our bare hands as we brought them up. Even now, I can't hold my wife or children. I can't stand skin. In addition to the psychological trauma he has, he suffered a shoulder injury that needed surgery. So while he was diving, a luggage compartment in the sewar broke open and massive luggage tumbled straight onto his shoulder. He had to get surgery and he says he drinks every day now. He just drinks because it's his medicine. In the end, his biggest regret isn't even volunteering. His biggest regret was getting there too late. He said, I couldn't even save one person.

1:14:29Many of the civilian volunteers, they all went through so much. so 43 year old Kim Kwan-ong he helped bring back 25 bodies at one point he lost consciousness during a dive got swept away in the current was saved had to go to the ER for treatment he stayed in the hospital for three days the minute he got back out he was back in the water he went into places where the coast guard weren't even attempting to go not even pretending like they were going to go he went to places the coast guard deemed too dangerous and he brought back children in his arms he said the victims were tangled together in their utter terror and I prayed and cradled each one of them as I brought them up.

1:15:06The divers did their best while the country did nothing. The country did nothing, especially for the divers. Do you know what the divers got in exchange for their contribution? Nothing. Okay, his only thing that he got, the only reason he did this was for the families of the victims, to give them closure and to do right by the children of the nation. But his body was wrecked. He cannot dive anymore. He has mounting hospital bills. He has paralysis in his left thigh. The government refused to deem the 39 injured civilian divers during the search operations as wounded by righteous causes, which would allow them to get health benefits and not have medical bills.

1:15:48In fact, the government actually turned their back on volunteer divers. They tried to charge a few of them for negligence when a diver died during a mission. They said, well, it's because you other divers didn't check his equipment. But the Coast Guard was never held accountable. Divers had to go to court to explain, I am not responsible for another diver's death. I am just volunteering to save bodies. The divers that all tried while the Coast Guard did nothing, they were being used and abused. In 2015, Kim testified about the trauma that he suffered from handling all the dead bodies during the rescue efforts.

1:16:25He said he cannot forget it. He will never forget it. and in 2017, he took his own life. His final text to his loved ones were, I'll see you in a better place in the next life. I'm sorry. So you're mad, I'm mad, okay? Let's all be mad at someone and there's a whole lot of people to be mad at in this case. Chonghae Jin Ferry Company, the Coast Guard, the former president and mainstream media. So let's talk about Chonghae Jin Company first. The Ferry Company, this is the connection to the last episode if you listened to it and the ferry company's sick obsession with overloading the cargo on their ferries.

1:17:03So this particular ferry, this Hewar, had a capacity of holding 90 vehicles. On that day, there were 124 cars and 56 trucks. Wow. None of them were properly secured. None of them were even tied down. They were just driven onto the cargo port and just left on park. They also took in more cargo than allowed for that size of a boat. Their maximum cargo hold is 987 tons, but they took in 1 ,157 tons. Again, none of which was tied down. Do we know why the person at the beginning turned the boat so much? 15 degrees? Unclear to this day, we think it's incompetence. Just straight up was like trying to do five, but turn 15 because it's manual steering.

1:17:56And I'll tell you why we think it's incompetence, because no one was trained, like none of the crews were trained. Oh, and side note, not all big boats are like that. Many big boats can turn at even higher degrees and be fine. But this specific boat, it was like a industry known thing between this company that this boat can only turn five degrees because it's unbalanced. But it's not a universal boat thing. It's like this boat can only turn five degrees. Now, it's not good to do a lot of degrees of turns, but still, this is crazy. The boat starts leaning to the left, which causes all the cargo and all the cars to slam to the left, which starts leaking in tons of water.

1:18:37Now, remember the ballast water that I was talking about? We have some exact measurements here. Like I said, there's a very important purpose. It keeps the center of gravity low. But there is another thing that it does. So it's actually compartmentalized the water. It's not just like one big water tub. it's like you have the left tub and the right tub and i'm simplifying it and then in between these two tubs you have these pumps so what happens is if the boat starts learning leaning to the left you start pumping this water to the right tub okay to balance it out the pumps were broken the pumps were broken that is i can't even describe to you how bad that is the pumps were broken and not only that there is like a mathematical equation to figure out how much ballast water is needed to offset the cargo weight.

1:19:22Typically, it's around the two times mark, meaning you need double the water for the cargo. So if there's 100 pounds of water, you can only have 50 pounds of cargo. In this case, the 세월 was carrying about 580 tons of ballast water. For the amount of cargo they had, they needed 2000 tons of ballast water. They had a fourth. Yeah, so it's completely off. So off. Yeah.

1:19:52and that's what they started with the crew actually pumped out hundreds of tons of water from the bottom to accommodate additional cargo when they were loading wow and as the boat goes you actually lose more ballast like water because um part of that compartment is fuel so as your boat is going you lose fuel because you're using the fuel so it becomes lighter that's why you need extra water. So let's work our way up the food chain. The first people at fault were the captain and the crew. Not all the crew, but many members of the crew. Crewmates were investigated for their abysmal handling of the evacuation, and one crewmate in particular was told verbatim by authorities, remember, to go tell everyone to put on a life jacket?

1:20:34Yeah, well, he didn't do it. He was just like, oh yeah, I told them, but he just walked around the deck and was like, okay, yeah. What's crazier is that all the crew members that were on the bridge with the captain, they all left with him. They were some of the first to be rescued. But that also meant nobody else was on the bridge anymore to keep open communication with rescue efforts. So them leaving the boat wasn't just bad that they were abandoning the boat, but there was no one to communicate with them on the boat. So all these Coast Guards are like, we're trying to talk to people on the boat, but like nobody's on the boat because you guys are out here.

1:21:05That's cool. A former U.S. Coast Guard investigator believes if those announcements of every passenger to stay in their cabin were not made, the passengers most likely, just human nature, would have gone to the deck to see what was going on. Then they would have become easily visible and more easily accessible to rescuers. Now, of course, it's heavily discussed and speculated how much of this announcement played a role in the deaths. Passenger Koo, a survivor, said that the passengers were trapped inside by windows that were very hard to break. He said he actually wanted to escape earlier, but those nonstop announcements kept telling him to stay put.

1:21:39He said the rescue was horrendous. We were all wearing life jackets. We all had time. If people had jumped into the water, they could have been rescued from the water. Another survivor said, The announcement told us to stay put, but the ship was already sinking. There were a lot of students who didn't get out of the ship in time because of those announcements. And also like the slow process of this. Yeah. It's not even a quick one. You just see the water rise on you inch by inch by inch. I yeah it's gotta be one of the worst way to go you can call your parents and talk to them and they can't do anything to help you because no one can help you right now or no one's choosing to help you okay fine so the captain and these crew members minus a few of the hero crew members they are horrendous but how do they fuck up so majorly like that doesn't even make sense how do you even not have a loose plan on what to do in situations like this That brings us to the company that owns the Sewol Ferry, Chonghaejin Marine Company.

1:22:42Chonghaejin Marine is like a different kind of evil, okay? This is in connection with our last episode. Chonghaejin's company's biggest shareholders are owned by another company that is controlled by a billionaire church leader founder, Yoo Byung-un's two sons. And in recent years, it was discovered that the Yoo family they received a total of at least$3.82 million from the ferry company. They got paid out, like about$4 million from this ferry company. And you're like, okay, that's great, right? That means the ferry company is doing well. No, the ferry company was in financial ruins. The year before the sinking, they reported a loss of$800 ,000 that year.

1:23:24They were cutting down on spending because the bottom line wasn't making sense. And you know where they were cutting down on spending? It was not to give their shareholders money. it was in the training and safety department of employees and new hires. Prosecutors discovered that so much money was being funneled to the billionaire family. Nothing was left for the actual company. Nothing was left to train the employees. The company was so starved of funds that they spent only$2 on the safety training for the Sewer's crew members. $2. You get hired, the company spends$2 to train you. And do you know what that money was spent on?

1:23:56It was not an actual training. The$2 was spent to buy a fake paper certificate that said you are now qualified. to be a crew member. You have done your safety courses. Life jackets, life rafts, were left uninspected from the 90s. And the life jackets weren't even stored where they were supposed to be, which is on the upper decks or near evac points, evacuation points. They were stored in the passenger cabins. Crew members who worked for the company admitted in interviews they would have had no clue what to do in case of an emergency. They've never had an evacuation training or a drill. To put it in perspective how horrendous that is, The U.S.

1:24:33Coast Guard regulations require passenger vessels to hold an abandoned ship drill and fire drill every single week. And it's not even like a hee-hee-ha-ha-we-did-it moment. You have to lower a lifeboat onto the water and start the engine of that lifeboat. That is the full drill. So it's a full-scale drill. Clearly, the Saewa did not do this, and Korean Coast Guards never regulated or followed up to any of the drills or training. But that still doesn't explain why the ship sank. Well, we have the overloading of the cargo, we have the ballast water, but there's actually more. All of that is making the balance of this boat just unstable, okay?

1:25:10It's becoming more and more top-heavy. The center of the gravity is not good right now. But it was worse because Chongyunjin bought the Seoul Ferry from another company and modified it and added two more levels on top to accommodate passenger cabins, which would bring in more money for them. raising up the center of gravity even more, making it extra top-heavy, which you don't want. They also underwent major renovations to create an art gallery where you guessed it, they housed Mr. Yoo Byung-eun's art, or should I say Ah-hae's art, that he would sell to them at inflated prices. In the boat? In the boat, there was an art gallery.

1:25:52With, oh, also more weight was added because they added these marble slabs thick marble slabs to showcase his work. And the company knew that what they were doing was dangerous. You can't even act like they were ignorant because it was discovered that between 2003 and 2011, Chonghae Jin had five crashes prior to the sinking of the Sewer Ferry. It was even recommended that their license be suspended or revoked, but that never happened. They actually purchased more ferries after 2011. They were also asked in 2003 to stop using the Menggul channel because you don't know what you're doing in there.

1:26:27You guys were in an accident in there. But they continued to use it because it shaves off a precious seven miles on the trip to Jeju, which is seven miles of fuel that they're saving on. Also in 2011, Chonghaejin Company tried to board a passenger ferry, I think in the Han River, where it's during holiday season. The maximum capacity for that ferry was 200 people. They tried to board 500. And the only reason that a tragedy didn't occur is because passengers on board threatened to riot. They were like, no, you're not going to board that many people. This is insane. But that's how blatant they were in bending the rules and putting lives in danger.

1:27:05Doc employees had even complained that anytime they helped load or unload the Sewol, it would just roll around in the water. Company officials decided Sewol should be sold because of the complaints and the safety concerns, but that was vetoed by Mr. Billionaire Yoo Byung-eun himself. The executives instead started repeating the new mantra for the company, which was load as much cargo as possible. None of the cargo was ever chained or lashed down, meaning it would just smash around. The saddest part to all of this is that all the overloading of the Sewol, it brought in an extra$3 million. That is$10 ,000 for every passenger that died.

1:27:46That is it. $10 ,000 for a life. What's insane is that there's regulators for these things. You can't just start a maritime company and be like, okay, well, I'm going to do whatever I want on my boats. There's regulators. The Korean Register of Shipping was an agency that's responsible for these things. They never followed up or facilitated inspections. Thankfully, many of those inspectors and regulators are in prison. And so now, you know, we know that Mr. Yoo Byung-un's children, the billionaire kids, if you guys have watched the last episode, they were also in prison and Mr. Yu, the billionaire, was found suspiciously dead in his apricot orchard during the nationwide hunt for him immediately after this.

1:28:31Oh, that was the time. Yes. Like right after this, everyone was like, what the hell is going on with Chonghaejin? They're like, who owns Chonghaejin? Oh, the major shareholder is this random company. Well, who owns that company? There was a manhunt. Now it is speculated, and I think all these people should be in jail, by the way, but it is speculated that the manhunt for them was a very smart tactic for the president park at the time because she was putting a lot of heat on the family versus government response she was saying i mean government response was bad but like this is the reason it even sunk in the first place yeah so the corruption incompetence does not end there what about the coast guard i mean i don't think i need to reiterate how badly they dropped the ball on this but it was horrendous Like they should be ashamed to even wear uniform.

1:29:18The first rescue vessel, Coast Guard vessel 123, they went to the ferry and they waited 20 minutes before they even rescued the captain. Because they were like, well, we got here, but we don't know what to do. So they just sat around until someone was like, I guess you could send a small boat and try to rescue someone. Do you see anyone? They're like, yeah, we see some people on dock, on the deck. They're like, OK. it was also revealed that the coast guard not only refused to rescue people essentially but they made it harder for civilians or other nations to help right so when civilians came and they're like i'm gonna try to rescue people the coast guard was like inspecting their stuff looking at their stuff like i don't think you can you shouldn't do that where's your license where's your you have a fishing license or were you out here illegally fishing i'm trying to save people i'm trying to do your job they're like the parking ticket police and people are dying They also were so bad.

1:30:08Eventually, once it was deemed that everyone was dead, the U.S. Navy and a lot of their professional divers were brought in to recover a lot of the bodies that were hard to find. The U.S. Navy took one look at how the Korean Coast Guard was handling things and said, unless you fix this list of insanely abysmal conditions of safety, we are not sending a single American in there. One more time. So the U.S. Navy and professional divers were finally, after like months, asked to come in and rescue some bodies. Not rescue, but recover bodies. And the U.S. said, okay, fine, we'll go take a look. The Navy looks around where the ferry had sank.

1:30:46They have a list of the most egregious safety violations that they'd ever seen. And they're like, we are not sending a single American into the water unless you fix all of this first. And the Korean ghost card was like, then I guess we'll just figure it out ourselves. they just refused to make it safe for anyone to dive it was bizarre the US Navy was like this is bizarre just how unprofessional and unsafe and ultimately how annoying you're making this and impossible for people to even help you like you can't do your job but now you're making it impossible for me to do your job ridiculous now another thing about the Coast Guard um remember the Coast Guard where the first helicopter comes and saves someone right well another helicopter comes in to save people and they don't really ever save people because he's just a helicopter driver he actually asked the head chief of the mokpo coast guard to like get in his helicopter so that they can save people and the chief was like oh i'm really tired from last night's work and i feel like the helicopter noise is going to give me a headache so he just sent one of his officers who just circled around the ferry the whole time and then uh once all of this starts getting leaked You know what a lot of these entities do?

1:31:58They start deleting files, mass deleting files, and the Jindal authorities that were also involved, they actually went as far to delete all their CCTV footage from inside their government office building the day of the incident. So at first, only low-ranking officials and government officials were investigated and prosecuted. The families were enraged because, let's be real, in the hierarchical Korean society, You think this low-level intern is making the shots? Like he's making the calls. He's like, no, we're not sending divers in. You think so? No, absolutely not. So they pushed and pushed. And in the end, President Park was facing so much heat, she announced a plan to break up and defund the Korean Coast Guard.

1:32:38She created a new department. But honestly, it's just a PR move. I'm sure most of the Coast Guard was moved to that new department. And the next president, President Moon, would just revive the Coast Guard in 2017. so nothing really changed. Many more arrests were made. More than 150 regulators, crew members, ship inspectors, and officials were indicted, including the captain of the Taewa Ferry. He was charged with murder. And he said, I bow my head, and I just thought if people were leaving the ferry without the proper equipment, they would drown or drift away in the water. So that's why he told them to stay put.

1:33:14Why the fuck don't you stay put then? Yeah, because he wasn't wearing a life vest when he was rescued. So why don't you stay put? My thing is, listen, with that much guilt and also public hate and scrutiny and a criminal trial, I would rather have died on the boat. So I just think it's so fascinating that some people have such a strong will to live that you would rather kill people to live. Nobody cared what he had to say. In the end, he was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. He was later acquitted and received 36 years in prison instead. What? Yeah. Yeah. He was saying, he was saying, okay, everyone is shifting.

1:33:50Even in the criminal trials is crazy. Everyone is shifting blame. So he's shifting the blame and saying, yes, I shouldn't have left the boat. I shouldn't have given these orders. But ultimately everybody died because the coast guard didn't rescue them. The coast guard is saying everybody died ultimately because they were told to stay in their cabins. So this is what they're doing. I know this is what they're, he looks so disgusted right now. This is what they're doing. Wow. Like just for that, I think he deserves another life sentence on top. Yeah. Like just the audacity of these things. So there were criminal charges levied against 399 people, including the imprisonment of 154 people.

1:34:26Six survivors from Tanwon High School were subpoenaed for their testimony during the criminal proceedings, and they said, a ferry with about 300 passengers, most of them students, is sinking fast. But instead of staging full-out rescue efforts, the crew members are nowhere to be seen, and the Coast Guard is just watching from afar. 30 students lined up for the emergency exit. The rescue teams didn't arrive, so we started jumping into the water. But eventually, the water got too close, and the emergency exit was no longer available to open. We were waiting to jump. We saw the Coast Guard within arm's reach.

1:34:58They were on the other side of that emergency exit. And we were screaming at them. That we're right here, but they just watched. Parents were understandably infuriated with all of this, with all these people and entities, but there was still the problem of the missing bodies. so by the summer of 2014 more rescue teams were sent in and bodies at first there were more found and of course it was few and further in between but at one point a body was found in an area that the divers already claimed that they had searched multiple times so let's say they said they searched room b on the third floor they said we searched that like 10 times and then a body was found by a rescue diver in room b on the third floor so of course it brings the question of competency of the recovery efforts yet again.

1:35:45Another body was found, a high school student in a bathroom that had allegedly already been searched 13 times according to official records. So what the hell is going on here? 13 times it showed that it was searched by the Coast Guard. The distrust was only growing stronger and it's not just people. The divers that are losing the trust of the parents, but it's also the Coast Guard forensics teams. So the way that they would do it is these Coast guard divers would dive into each room of each level and they would collect a water sample. They would bring this water sample up and then collect another water sample at the surface of the water.

1:36:19They would then test these water samples and I guess there are certain bacteria or something in the water they're looking for that indicates there are human remains in that room. But if it's a match to the surface water, that means that there is no corpse in that area. So they said they checked it 13 times. The bathroom water was tested two to three times. and each time it showed that it was the same and consistent as the surface water. A volunteer diver found the girl in the bathroom. It is heavily implied that these Coast Guard divers were lazy and just collected two samples from the surface of the water and said one was from the bathroom down in the boat, one was from the surface water.

1:37:00Oh, they're a match. There's no body in there. We're doing so well. Nothing. I mean, nothing is going right. The authorities didn't get one thing right, and the dives were getting even more dangerous. And there are actually a lot of more deaths that are associated with this that are not including like the 300 on board. A Navy officer was injured and passed away. An Undyne Marine named Mr. Lee passed away during a dive, which I know that we talked badly about Undyne, but that's the company, not the employee's problem. He was actually diving when he just lost contact with everyone on surface. So his colleagues went in into the water.

1:37:36He was found dead. Yeah, his air supply cords were tangled and he was unconscious without his diving equipment on. It's not really clear what happened. An x-ray of his chest showed no irregularities, but a scan showed that his skull was filled with air. Now, a few weeks later, another civilian diver passed away. July of 2014, a helicopter from rescue operations crashed, killing all five officers on board and injuring a high school student. Wait, when was this? July 2014. Why is there a high school student? I don't know if they were on there to help with like guidance or something. But yeah, there was another death link to the sinking that shocked a lot of people.

1:38:18The vice principal of Tanwon High School, vice principal Kang, he was found hanging from a tree near Jindo Island. So this is the island where all the parents had gathered. And it's said that he was the leader of this school trip. He was in charge of the kids' safety. he was rescued, but over 250 of his students were not. He wrote in his note that he feels guilty and he wants to take responsibility for what happened. He wrote that the trip was his idea and he cannot live without knowing where his students are. He wrote in the letter that he wonders if he could still be their teacher on the other side.

1:38:52In death. He asked his ashes to be scattered around where the ferry went down. Now, the sad part is before his death, a lot of parents took their anger out on him and so did a lot of Korean news media outlets, like a lot of adults. But when he passed, students and survivors alike, they went to his memorial in uniform and paid their respects and said, he was an ethics teacher, so I wonder if it was really hard for him. He was a good person and he really cared for students. I don't think anyone should be blaming him. Again, another instance where I feel like a child is sometimes more wise than an adult.

1:39:28After the memorial, the hearse carrying his body circled around the school one last time. He was survived by his wife and three children. At least three parents have taken their own lives after losing their children in this Hayward Ferry. One of the fathers took his life on the one-year anniversary of this Hayward Ferry tragedy. Many families have completely disintegrated, completely, I mean, divorced, fallen into addictions, financial distress. One mom said, you just have to cry when it's hard. There's no way around it. No one, nothing, nothing can console you or help you. When I miss my son, I go lie in his bed and I hug his pillows and I smell his smell and I cry.

1:40:06Many, many families have left their children's room exactly the way it is, not touching a single thing, almost as if these students are going to walk in through their door with their backpack. Most families hate spring. This is like April is like the best season in South Korea. They hate it. One victim's mom said her husband, the victim's father, has these intense nightmares. And she said, my husband constantly has nightmares, kicking his leg, even grabbing me by the collar. And one night when I hugged him, he just let out these screams and he cried like a baby. He just looks so lonely. Many siblings of victims fell to self-harm and depression.

1:40:46One sister has her birthday on April 19th, and for years, it was too hard, too painful for her to even celebrate. And for the first time, she asked her parents if they would like to join her for dinner for her birthday. So it's been very rough for these families, rescue personnel, but also the survivors. Survivors' guilt is a scary, scary thing. I mean, I think it's confusing. Like, how do you even process that type of emotion? There was a 71-year-old woman who was eating breakfast when she heard screaming. She saw people just sliding down the floor, so she grabbed a railing and saw everyone tumble like dominoes.

1:41:22She remembers going into shock, but this young man grabbed her arm and screamed, come on, hold on to me tightly. She was trying to let go and slide down with everyone because she was so exhausted. She's 71, but she's like, no, no, no, I can't. I can't hold on any longer. She said she was exhausted, but this young man never gave up on her and kept holding her arm. He grabbed her and pulled her up. He failed, so he pulled her up again, and this time it worked. He escorted her to the rescue boats and she would not have made it out without him. She wanted to ask for his name but it was so chaotic he was just gone.

1:41:56Her four friends she was traveling with for like this Jeju trip, her four friends died. She suffered a broken back and she said, you know I'm grateful I want to thank that young man I want to buy him a meal or at least hold his hand or give him a hug. Like what else can a lady like me do? But how could it be that an old woman like me survives and all these young people are still in there? It is such a shame. Civilians very early on realized that they were being lied to. So they tried to show their support to the parents with yellow ribbons. Even while news outlets are still lying, civilians tied yellow ribbons everywhere to show their support, to show parents we know and we are supporting you.

1:42:41Since then, yellow ribbons have been used to symbolize mourning for the Sehwar Ferry victims, but it's almost now become synonymous with skepticism against the government and standing up to corruption. A lot was exposed about high government officials when this case broke, like how President Park was unavailable for up to seven hours during the initial incident. So not only was she unavailable, but her and her administration falsified schedule records to show that she was on official duties at the time, which she was not. Which even if you're on official duties, I'm sorry, your nation's children are dying on a boat.

1:43:13Get it together. It can wait. She just wasn't involved. I guess nobody, I don't know if she wasn't alerted or I don't know if she wasn't making enough calls. So now all these officials are covering for her or her administration is covering for her. Now, President Park's administration was also exposed for bullying and threatening reporters and news networks for reporting on the truth. They even indicted a Japanese reporter who shit on her for handling this tragedy in the way that she did. And Japan slammed South Korean prosecutors. And the chief cabinet secretary of Japan said freedom of press should be respected.

1:43:47And that indictment was far out of the norms of the accepted wisdom in the international community. So it's clear the president cares about her appearance domestically and oddly, very much so internationally. And that's it. And when she decided she was sick of people calling her out for her vile, disgusting behavior, she said this about the Sewer tragedy. It's time to overcome the pains and hardship from the Sewer incident and move on to build a new South Korea. We cannot stay trapped in the sadness and frustrations that have gripped us for the past year. At this point, bodies were still being recovered.

1:44:23Not everyone has been put to rest yet. she was later impeached for corruption. This is a big part of it. Her ratings dropped drastically after this. And shamanism, oddly, were the reasons that she was impeached. We have a video on it, but anyway, not a great person. In the end, nine bodies were still missing in the incident and the parents stood by each other to make sure those victims came home to be laid to rest, which would ultimately lead to the Sewer being salvaged from the bottom of the seafloor, but it took a very long time to get there. The parents requested that this Hauer ferry be salvaged immediately because evidence, the bodies are intact, like we need to do this, right?

1:45:02There are speculations that the government went out of their way to come up with a million reasons on why this was impossible. It's theorized that they were scared that the evidence would show incompetence. One big thing that got a lot of people mad was that out of 172 survivors, more than half of them were rescued by fishing boats and other civilians and or commercial boats that had nothing to do with the government. One survivor said, I wonder why the rescuers who first got to the ship didn't do anything about 100 or 200, I think, were trapped inside. They were just picking up the ones at the top.

1:45:35Can we talk about the salvaging of the ferry real quick? Okay, this is crazy. Two months, I think it was like two months after the sinking of the ferry, seven private companies brought in proposals. So this happens a lot with these sometimes natural disasters, sometimes national disasters. these private companies will bring in proposals and it was seven maritime companies that said hey we have a way to salvage the ferry this is how we're going to do it this is option a this is option b this is option c and this is how much we would charge the government to do it thank you that's our proposal it's almost like a government bid all these companies are trying to get this deal so that they can salvage the ferry now one company in particular had a very unique plan the problem with salvaging this ferry was not oh let's just lift it up by cranes and then bring it ashore.

1:46:23It's not like that. It's so complicated because you have bodies in there. You have evidence in there. You want to keep these bodies as intact as possible. So there's a lot that you're working with and it's in the channel, the Mengor channel. So there's a lot. So their plan was to tilt the boat onto its side again, because right now it was like inverted, tilt it to its side, crane it onto a floating vessel and salvage it there. That was like their plan, right? The government reads this proposal like two months after the sinking. Everyone says, when are you going to salvage the boat? They said, we have to do tests.

1:47:00We have to find the perfect solution. You guys, you don't understand because you don't know, but it's so hard. You know, this is in the water. It's very, very sensitive issue. We need to make sure none of the evidence gets lost. We need to make sure the bodies are intact. So it's going to take some time. We need to do a lot of tests. A year later, the government comes out and says, after a year of that, we have amazing news. We have found the best solution. They take credit for the solution that they had on their desks two months after the sinking, and they pretty much copy that proposal word for word.

1:47:33And that was exposed by Newstapa. Parents of victims gathered together in front of government buildings to stage a hunger strike. Not for money, but for the truth. They just wanted answers on how something like this could have happened. For months, the country mourned with them. And there's a moving story about a father who ate nothing but water and salt for 46 days. The president still had some supporters, super conservatives, that came out to eat pizza and fried chicken in front of the parents who were hunger striking. I don't know why they defended the president. Like, that's your mom or something.

1:48:09I don't know why anyone defends any politician, regardless of what their beliefs are so vehemently. Like, I mean, it's crazy. One parent stated, I don't need money, compensation, or trauma therapy. I just need the truth, please. That's all. And he formally bowed in front of lawmakers begging for them to help. Families of victims even shaved their heads in public in a demonstration. They just wanted to put their family members to rest. And the government just kept asking, so you want compensation? No, we want you to find our family members. Finally, the ferry was salvaged three years later. There were nine missing passengers at that point and only partial remains would be found in the salvaging.

1:48:52Many of the victims were put to rest a thousand days after the tragedy. But by the end of October 2018, five people are still missing. Two 16-year-old students, a 57-year-old teacher, a 48-year-old father, and the 7-year-old boy. Remember the older brother of the 6-year-old sister? They are still missing. The families of all the victims would receive approximately$177 ,000 for each victim lost, which is absolutely nothing. I mean, first of all, they didn't even want it in the first place, but it's absolutely nothing. 71 days after the Sewer sinking, survivors returned to school. and before the tragedy, the sophomore class of Tanwon had 325 students.

1:49:33Now there were 75 in that class. All 75 were provided group therapy as part of the class time. 10 counselors were brought in to be readily available and students at Tanwon said, every student here knows someone who has died or has gone missing. Like just imagine the depth, like the web of trauma left behind. One student says, our school feels so empty now. it's not an environment where we can study. I just, I wake up every morning hoping it's a lie, but it's not. And I will say that when tragedy does strike, Korea is a nation that at least the civilians come together. The government, wow. But the civilians do come together in honor of the Sewer tragedy.

1:50:18All K-pop groups, every single one stopped the release of all new music and promotions. The whole entertainment industry was at a standstill. Most industries in South Korea were at a standstill. There were no ads, no promotions for anything. And once the morning period was over, BTS came back with a song called Spring Day, directly inspired by Sewol. The translated lyrics read, I miss you even though I'm looking at your photo. Time is a cruel thing. I want to go to the other side of the earth holding your hand. How long do I have to wait? How many nights do I have to pass, to see you, to meet you?

1:50:55Until spring day comes again, until the flowers bloom again. Please stay. Please stay here a little longer. Another K-pop artist dedicated his concert to a fan that had purchased tickets to be there, but she passed on the Sewol Ferry. Shin Young-jae of four men finished and produced a song called You Whom I Love, and the song was written by one of the teenagers that passed on the Sewol. His name is Lee Da-eun, and he wanted to be an artist one day. He plays the guitar, he writes his own lyrics And his idol, his role model in life was Shin Youngjae After the Sewer tragedy, his parents reached out Just not really expecting anything But he finished the song and performed it in honor of all the victims The lyrics translated are To you who has suffered so much You went through a lot, right?

1:51:47I want to hold you in my arms And right now I hope you're dreaming sweet dreams But we're sleepless at night thinking of you I wish you could relax, but just know that I will always be here with you right next to you Many artists and idols wore yellow ribbons during performances to honor the victims But I will end the very long video with this A family member of one of the victims was asked You know, why do you think this happened? Why do you think the kids weren't saved? He said people ask that all the time. Why do you think they failed to protect the children? And I think above all they just had no desire to protect the children.

1:52:26Golden time? All they did was lie. And it's interesting because I think it's frustrating that Americans can also relate to that exact thing of what's going on in our country, in our schools. And it's just very frustrating to see that so many countries fail to protect their children and they just don't seem like they care to do it. What are your thoughts on this case? And please stay safe and I will see you guys on Sunday. Bye!