Over 200 students are missing from the Ferry accident which you can read more about here. So I've only heard what's happened briefly, and so I did further research, spending nearly 30 minutes of my class time to read articles after articles, both American and Korean ones.
I can't believe this has happened. According to the article I linked, the last time this happened was in 1993. I don't know, I know the world hasn't gotten better, but I thought maybe the technology would be better now. I'm not educated much in this. It's rare for such tragic events like this to happen in South Korea, at least during the time that I've been alive. There are no school shootings or terrorist attacks in Korea. I thought all was well.
Plus the article says that the text messages that the passengers sent are fake. Maybe some of them are, but I took a look at the screen captures of the actual messages, and they seemed real. Another source said that it's hard to determine the authenticity of the messages for now, but one of the survivors had texted his mothers while waiting to be rescued. So texting during such a situation is not entirely impossible, in my opinion.
Along with the rest of the Koreans, tears come to my eyes the more I look into the pictures, the videos, these "artifacts" of text messages. If you've been reading my blog, you should know how crazy in love I am with Korea. Plus, the news have been playing during breakfast, and although the English dubber covers the answers to the interviews by a Korean, the first part at least isn't concealed and the cries I hear from desperate parents, I can understand them all. The various articles got me imagining the situation, how the students must have felt, trapped. About a year ago, there was the Sandy-Hook incident and now this. I'm just emotionally disoriented. These students were all around my age. I have a close friend in Korea who's their age. What if she had been on that ferry at the time? I don't have any direct, personal experience of the Korean High School life, but my friend had given me a glimpse of the actual interior of her school building. To imagine a school building like that empty of its former students... How is the school going to go on with this?
Last night, before I looked more in-depth about this and before more news came out, all I had were criticisms for the captain. I had heard that he survived, along with the rest of the crew members. What in the world were they doing?! But then when more news was released, and I saw the captain hiding his face from the public, just apologizing, I think my mind changed a little. Of course other measures should have been taken, but he's getting enough crap from the rest of the people. I think everyone's just going through a lot of crap.
I don't know, maybe I'm too much of a thinker but I wonder how this may revolutionize the class trips that all Korean schools take - will there be any more use of the ferries? Or will the design of the ferry be completely altered, enforced by some legislation?
All I can say is - my prayers go out to everyone who is affected.
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