An Overloaded Ferry Flipped and Drowned Hundreds of Schoolchildren. Could It Happen Again? (Published 2019) (2024)

When things go wrong, those in power often promise to make it right. But do they? In this series, The Times is going back to the scene of major news events to see if those promises were kept.

JEJU, South Korea — The promises came too late for the overloaded South Korean ferry, too late for the 250 students who drowned when it capsized on a school trip to a resort island.

All South Koreans could do was watch, heartbroken, the desperate videos from students sending last messages to their families as cold waves filled the ship. “Mom, Dad, I love you,” one boy said in a video recovered from a phone.

But as a stunned nation took stock after the Sewol ferry disaster, people hoped it might not be too late to make sure this could never happen again: Officials had promised to finally take on a national culture that often puts profit over people.

Now, five years later, the ships ferrying thousands of South Korean commuters and travelers every day are still vulnerable to cheating and corruption. The Times visited two major ports, interviewed inspectors and Coast Guard officials, and spoke with maritime safety experts. This is what we found:

• Officials have worked hard to improve maritime safety, adopting new regulations and tougher penalties for people who violate them.

• But rule breaking appears widespread, with the government making limited headway against an industry in which safety is still often an afterthought.

• Crucial new measures to prevent ships from being overloaded are often sidestepped. The Coast Guard has uncovered cheating at almost every step of the cargo-weighing process.

• The government itself has declined to require changes at ports that experts say would dramatically increase safety by making it easier to catch cargo cheaters. Officials rejected the fixes as too costly.

• One maritime safety expert put it bluntly: “They haven’t learned the lessons of the Sewol disaster after all the sadness and national trauma.”

The Problem

A Culture of Venality

The Sewol sank because of greed.

Renovations by the owner, and approved by regulators, made the ferry more profitable, but also dangerous. Extra berths made the ship so top-heavy that dockworkers said it would lurch badly when loading or unloading.