Korean ferry sinks, 304 Dead, mostly high school students

[grumbler]

Let the Market decide.  If people want to shove kids onto an overloaded ferry with no emergency equipment and training it should be their god given right to do so.

Disagree.  The government knows best.  Allowing market forces to inflict social injustice on the people is a relic of 19th-century thinking.  If South Korea had just nationalized all the ferries this would never have happened. 

[Phillip V]

South Korean Prime Minister Offers to Resign

'The government has come under fire as early investigations revealed a slew of loopholes in safety measures and a lax regulatory enforcement that investigators said contributed to the sinking of the 6,825-ton ferry, the Sewol, on April 16.

It was also criticized for failing to respond quickly and efficiently to the crisis and for fumbling during the early stages of rescue operations.'

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/27/world/asia/south-korean-prime-minister-resigns-over-ferry-disaster.html

[jimmy olsen]

 

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/04/26/world/asia/south-korea-ship-sinking/

Fisherman Kim Hyun-ho finds no peace when he lies down at night. The hundreds of dead or missing passengers from the Sewol ferry disaster haunt his sleep.

Their screams ring in his head. He has vivid memories of his rush to save them in his modest fishing boat off South Korea's coast 10 days ago.

Kim thinks he may have pulled 25 people from the frigid waters of the Yellow Sea, he said Saturday. But the man from a nearby tiny island of just 100 people feels no pride, only torment.

"It was hell. Agonizing. There were a lot of people and not enough boats, people in the water yelling for help. The ferry was sinking fast," he said.

He watched people trapped inside go under with the vessel yards in front of him. Then he heard on television how many people were sealed up in the ship.

The father of two grown children is heartbroken for the hundreds of parents who have lost theirs, those he could not save.

He's trying to fish again, but he's a changed man, he says.

...

On Friday, investigators checked out the Sewol's sister ship, the Ohamana, and said they found 40 of its life rafts weren't working, emergency slides to help evacuate passengers were inoperable, and equipment to tie down cars and cargo either was nonexistent or didn't work very well.

Like the Sewol, the Ohamana had been modified to add more passengers, the prosecutor's office said.

[jimmy olsen]

Apparently smart phone memory cards can survive being submerged in salt water.

Audio is starting to be released and it's heartbreaking.

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/04/27/world/asia/south-korea-ferry-video/

[jimmy olsen]

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPbnODd1Wjc

'Mom, This Looks Like the End of Me': Doomed Vessel's Last Minutes
Korean Ferry Students Captured Sinking on Video

By CHOE SANG-HUNAPRIL 30, 2014

SEOUL, South Korea — As a ferry carrying 476 people was badly listing off the southwestern coast of South Korea two weeks ago, one of the students on board asked, "Are we becoming a Titanic?"

"This is fun!" another shouted, not realizing that the ferry would soon capsize and sink.

In videos recovered from the cellphones of passengers aboard the ferry Sewol, a voice can be heard over the ship's intercom urging students and their teachers to stay put, telling them they are safer where they are. But as the ship continued to tip and the voice over the intercom repeated the same instructions, panic spread. Some passengers apparently sensed the approaching doom, and sent farewells to their families.

"This looks like the end," a boy shouted into a smartphone held by one of his classmates, Park Su-hyeon.

Before he could finish, another boy cut in: "Mom, Dad, I love you."

The young passengers were among 325 second-year high school students on board the 6,825-ton ferry, which sank on April 16. After Su-hyeon, 17, was found dead, the police returned the boy's recovered personal items to his family, who discovered the video on his phone. This week, his father, Park Jong-dae, released the video to the local news media, saying that South Koreans must watch it to learn what went wrong.

As of Wednesday, 210 people were confirmed dead, with 92 still missing. Of the dead or missing, 250 were students on a school trip to a resort island.

Among the text messages, photos and video clips that have been produced by passengers of the ill-fated ship, Su-hyeon's 15-minute footage bears the most dramatic witness to the panic and fear, as well as youthful naïveté and optimism, of the students trapped inside the ship while many of the crew members, including the captain, were among the first to desert their vessel.

"This is by far the most heartbreaking scene I have seen in my 27-year broadcasting career," said Choi Seung-ho, a veteran television producer, when he introduced the footage on Newstapa, a website run by the Korea Center for Investigative Journalism. JTBC, a cable channel, also broadcast a shorter version of the video.

The video was edited to blur the faces of the students, and the students whose voices were captured were not identified.

Su-hyeon's video begins at 8:52 a.m. on April 16. That was three minutes before the ferry sent its first distress signal to maritime traffic controllers on shore.

"The ship is leaning!" one passenger can be heard saying.

"Help me!" another said, sounding almost as if it were part of a youthful prank.

As students felt the ship shuddering and wondered whether it was sinking, a crew member came onto the intercom, urging students to stay put.

"Nonsense," one student shouted. Another said: "I want to get off. I mean it."

Though the vessel had tilted so much that some students were grabbing the railings on the wall to hang on, the video showed no sign of students trying to escape.

At 8:53, a voice on the intercom again advised the passengers not to move.

"What? Hurry! Save us!" a student shrieked. Another wondered, "Are we going to die?" A minute later, as the ship listed further, some students suggested donning life jackets. An announcement over the intercom again instructed passengers to stay where they were.

At 8:55, while the ship's crew sent its first distress signal, one student in the cabin below shouted, "We don't want to die!"

Over the intercom, the students were again urged not to move and to hold onto what they could. The ship's captain and crew members later told reporters and investigators that they had thought it was safer for the passengers to stay in their cabins than to move in a panicked mass, causing the ship to list faster, or for them to jump into cold waters when the rescue ships were still far away.

Some of the male students appeared to hide their growing fear with jokes and uneasy laughs. One student said, "We are going to make news with this." Another said, "This is going to be a lot of fun if we get it onto our Facebook."

At 8:57, as another announcement from the crew advised "please never move," one student said: "Should I call Mom? Mom, this looks like the end of me."

After a two-and-a-half-minute break, the video resumed at 9:00, when students began passing one another life jackets and one wanted to have a picture taken as a "souvenir." Some students complained that the zippers of their life jackets did not work and one student gave his life jacket to a classmate who could not find one.

"What about you?" the classmate asked.

"Don't worry," his friend responded. "I will get one for myself."

Amid the growing panic, one boy shouted that he did not want to die. "I still have lots of animation movies I haven't watched yet," he said. Another boy made a V sign with his fingers in front of the phone's camera.

At 9:03, one student wondered, "What is the captain doing?"

Three minutes later, students yelled "Silence! Silence!" as the ship's intercom crackled again, repeating the same message: Stay put and wear life jackets if possible.

"Yes, sir!" a few students responded in a hopeful tone. But another questioned the instruction: "What's going on? If they are telling us to wear life jackets, doesn't that mean that the ship is sinking?"

At 9:07, the voice over the intercom repeated the instruction.

At 9:08, a minute before the video ends, one student was heard saying, "I am scared," and others wondered whether their teacher was safe.

More than 20 minutes later, the first Coast Guard helicopters and ships arrived at the scene. Video from another student's phone shows female students cheering when they hear helicopters overhead. That four-minute video was taken beginning at 9:37 by Park Ye-seul, who died on the ferry, and was released to JTBC by her father.

One of Ye-seul's classmates could be heard pleading: "Save us, save us." But one of the first things the Coast Guard rescuers did was help the ship's captain, Lee Jun-seok, and other crew members off the sinking ferry.

Video footage released by the Coast Guard showed no officers trying to move below deck where the students were trapped. Investigators are reviewing the cellphone videos as part of their investigation.

Mr. Lee, the captain, was in his room and the least experienced of his four mates was in charge of its navigation when the vessel suddenly listed in waters notorious for rapid and unpredictable currents. Mr. Lee and 14 other crew members have been arrested on charges of abandoning their passengers in an emergency.

When he was deserting the ship, the 69-year-old captain was still in his underpants.

[The Brain]

How are your kids dealing with this?

[Tamas]

Heartbreaking 

I hope the entire crew gets very serious sentences. It looks as if people with no sense of responsibility get into officer jobs on ships worldwide. When that cruise ship ran aground at Italy, the captain there was first to leave as well. Scumbags. Hundreds of children are trapped in their ship and all they think about is running.

[Norgy]

Heartbreaking 

I hope the entire crew gets very serious sentences. It looks as if people with no sense of responsibility get into officer jobs on ships worldwide. When that cruise ship ran aground at Italy, the captain there was first to leave as well. Scumbags. Hundreds of children are trapped in their ship and all they think about is running.

Wasn't he also high on coke and generally accepted as the capo di douchebaggi tutti?

[The Brain]

Heartbreaking 

I hope the entire crew gets very serious sentences. It looks as if people with no sense of responsibility get into officer jobs on ships worldwide. When that cruise ship ran aground at Italy, the captain there was first to leave as well. Scumbags. Hundreds of children are trapped in their ship and all they think about is running.

Have you read Lord Jim?

[Phillip V]

Body of Ferry Victim Found by Fishermen

'Fishermen retrieved the body of a passenger of the sunken South Korean ferry about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) away from the vessel, fueling fears that other victims may have drifted away from the disaster site.'

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303678404579534673637428720

[jimmy olsen]

How are your kids dealing with this?

I haven't really talked to them about it. Koreans has a whole though have been very angry and upset over the whole orderal. Kids seem a bit more resilient though I guess, adults have a broader view and it hit them harder.

[jimmy olsen]

Full transcript

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/south-korean-ferry-transcript-of-student-s-video-from-inside-sinking-ship-1.2628957

Passenger: "Oh, it's tilted. Hey, will you help me out?"

[One of the passengers makes a request by cellphone for rescue.]

Coast guard: "What is the name of the ship? Name of the ship?"

Student: "Sewol. Sewol."

Coast guard: "Sewol, is this a merchant ship? What is this?"

Student: "What?"

Coast guard: "What is the type of the ship? Is it a ferry? Is it a fishing ship?"

Student: "This is a ferry."

At this point in the video, the students talk among themselves. Their conversations are interrupted by on-board announcements.

ON-BOARD ANNOUNCEMENT: Please don't move from your current location, and be prepared for safety instructions [regarding the] accident.

"Will the water leak in really? The shaking is getting serious."

ON-BOARD ANNOUNCEMENT: Please stand by.

"It's tilting this way. Can't move."

ON-BOARD ANNOUNCEMENT: .... dangerous. Please be prepared for safety instructions [regarding the] accident.

"[Expletive] This is ridiculous."

"Oh I want to get off. I really do."

"Hey, would you like to shoot me [with your cellphone camera]?"

"Hey, what's the situation?"

"[Expletive] Hey, why did you get out?"

"Hey, hey, look at this. It's not going down any further is it?"

"Is it shifting even more? The shifting is getting serious. If I relax myself, I just move right this way [shows how the ship is leaning]."

"Lend me some support."

"Wait a second. Wait a second."

"Quiet. Quiet."

ON-BOARD ANNOUNCEMENT: ...do not move from your current position, please.

"Open the door."

"It can only be opened from the inside."

"It was really [expletive] difficult for me a second ago."

"This cannot be opened from the outside at all."

(Yelling) "What is this? Hurry, rescue us!"

"Yay, this is fun."

"Am I really going to die?"

"If we were outside the window, we'd already be dead, [expletive]."

"What are the chances of this happening, [expletive]?"

"Of course, even when I was living in [location deleted], nothing was even close to this."

"Hey, my arms are shaking."

"It's tilting even more."

"Hey, pass my shoes up."

"It's tilting even more? Are you kidding?"

"Hey, all the shoes are sliding away here."

"[Expletive] What are you doing?"
Looking for life vests

"This isn't an emergency situation. This is reality."

"Someone bring the life vests out."

"Come on, bring what out? Why?"

"Because we don't know how this is going to turn out. This is really happening."

ON-BOARD ANNOUNCEMENT: Once again, dear passengers, this is the guidance announcement. [Difficult to hear, possibly 'Don't move'] ... from where you are.

"We don't know what's going to happen, so bring them [the life vests] out."

"[Expletive] No, no, we can't go."

"[Expletive]-camera, camera. This is not recording well with this camera."

(Student yelling) "Let me live!"

"You never know, so keep this [life vest]."

"No, no, I'm fine, I'm fine."

[Another rescue call is made from Sewol to Jeju Vessel Traffic Services Centre]

Sewol: Our ship is in danger. The ship is rolled over now.

Jeju VTS: Yes, where is your ship?

"We don't want to die."

"Is the water even leaking in?"

"I couldn't even imagine it could roll over like this."

"We took our life vests."

"The ship is slowly tilting over."

"This is no joke."

"School class trip. [Lengthy expletives] school class trip."

"Here's a life vest."

"The ship is still settling. It's slowly going to the left."

"It feels like it's better than just moments ago. But why did the ship roll over suddenly?"

"Something smells strange."

"[Expletive.] Is the gas leaking?"

ON-BOARD ANNOUNCEMENT: Once again, dear passengers, a guidance announcement. Those of you who are inside the ship, please do not move. [Difficult to make out, possibly "Try to find"] ...a pole you can hold onto.

[Note: The view on the screen shows the interior of the ship tilted to one side.]

"Isn't this going to be in the news?"

"Hey, [friend's name], let's stay together."

"Something smells like boiled egg. Something smells like boiled egg."

"Settling. The [ship's] settling is finished."

"Hey, can you catch me if I fall?"

"Don't you fall."

"I really want to get down. It's scary here."

"I'd recommend that you don't get down."

"You hold on to this. You hold on to this, too."

"No, I'll hold onto this."

"Leave them on the floor."

"Why are you pulling out the life vests?"

"We don't want to die, don't want to die."

[Another phone call between a passenger and the police service is heard.]

Police: The ship is about to sink, you say?

Passenger: Yes. Yes. Sewol. Sewol. The one that's coming in from Incheon to Jeju. Hurry.

[indiscernible noise]

Passenger: We are not supposed to move.

Police: Hello?

Passenger: Yes. Yes. The ship is sinking.

"Even if you die, I don't want to die."

"[Expletive], is it over?"

"No, no."   

"It's rolling over. That's what's happening now."

"This one would be fun to post on Facebook."

"Dad, I don't want to die."

"Oh, this is going to be fun once the water leaks in."

"Really, once the water leaks in, we've really got to get out."

"Should I call my mom? Mom, I'm at my end."

ON-BOARD ANNOUNCEMENT: Please do not move from where you are.

"It says do not move."
'The Man Who Defied Gravity'

[Two minutes and 25 seconds later.]

"So, hey, they're all saying everything is going to be fine?"

"Sure. That's why I'm saying I got to get out of here now."

"Me, too. Me, too."

"Bye."

"Getting ready to jump in."

"I'm going to wear the life vest."

"I gotta wear one, too."

"Really gotta wear one."

"I must wear one, too."

"Hey, you should wear one, too."

"Are you going to wear it?"

"[Expletive.] Things like this should be photographed."

"Shoot this as the last souvenir. Shoot it like this. Call it The Man who Defied Gravity."
[Student poses in severely tilted cabin.]

"Shoot it [facing] down."

"Hurry, hurry, hurry."

"Mom, I love you. Mom, I love you. I love you."

"Some school class trip."

"Mom, the ship is now..."

"Don't fall on me when the ship suddenly shakes."

"Are we really all going to fall?"

"Wear clothes now."
[Reference to cold ocean water.]

"Now, we must try to live."

"Give me one of those [life vests]. Where is it? Pull down the life vest there."

"Here it is."

"Hey, hey, hey. Watch out here. The wind, kids, all....."

"Throw all the life vests down here."

(Yells) "Life vest!"

"[Expletive, expletive, expletive.]"

"Throw them."

"Got to survive."

"What is this?"

"Really, really scared."

"Time for a selfie."

"Me, too. Me, too. Take one of me screaming." [Makes a facial expression of screaming.]

"What is really going on?"
No more life vests

"Is it really sinking? What, they have life vests, too."

"Hey, you, wear the life vest."

"Ah, I'm hurt."

"Guys, put on the life vests."

"No more of them now? The life vests?"

"Yeah."

"[Name hidden] hey, what about you?"

"The [life vest] zippers aren't locking."

"My zippers are broken, too."

"We don't have one life vest here."

"Wear that kid-sized one. The kid-sized one."

"It seems like I'll have to."

"We don't have [name hidden]'s life vest. Must go and find it."

"[Name hidden]'s? Yours?"

"No."

"Go find them."

"Wear mine."

"What about you?"

"Me? I'm going to go get it."

"Go get it."

"I have lots of cartoons I haven't seen. I have lots of cartoons I haven't seen. The season isn't over yet."

"I hate sinking. I haven't even found my cash yet."

"Give me five more."
[Possible reference to life vests.]

"No more? Not even one? Look at that end. That end. Find another life vest."

"This is fun."

"Throw them all. Why are there no more [life vests]? There must be."

"Put your feet here."

"Are they wearing [life vests] outside [the cabin]?"

"The kids outside are not wearing them. They aren't wearing them."

"But the situation outside now, we can't tell the situation of the kids at the balcony."

"Bring it out. Bring it out."

"No, like, something got stuck."

"What do we do?"

"What is the captain doing?"

"It's like it became the Titanic. [Hums the soundtrack tune to The Titanic]"

"The phone is not working?"

"No, not working."
Final words

"Ahh, we're doomed. Like, I could die without having a chance to say my last words."

"Well, leave them now. [Expletive]"

"Record them."

"Recording. This is a video."

"Please, if I don't survive, Mom and Dad, I love you."

"Well, you next."

"He's reading the text messages. Poor thing."

"Hey [name hidden]."

"Don't shoot [video]."

"Mom, Dad, Dad, Dad, my younger brother, what should I do? I must say that my younger brother must not go on a school trip ever."

"Hey, you've got to give one to that guy, him."
[Possible reference to life vests.]

"I can't give them to those guys."

"Search in there. Search there."

"All done? Are you guys all done? Why aren't you wearing it [a life vest]? Well, you don't worry about gathering your belongings in a situation like this."

Teacher/adult: "Are you all wearing life vests? Confirm if you're all wearing one."

"Yes, ma'am, we're all wearing them."

"How do you lock this [vest]?"

"This doesn't fit."

"Ahh, I feel like I have motion sickness."

"Hurry, wear it."

"Look, come to think of it, I haven't done many bad things. [Expletive]"

"Hey, this is going to be in the news, I guarantee it. This is going to be in the news."

"No, it won't for something like this, unless it sinks."

"Sinks? It's sinking now."

"It will not sink. It must not."

"Ah, my cellphone. There's no network reception."

"Mom, I love you. Dad, I love you. I love you both. This is the son of Mr. [name hidden] speaking, because it seems like I might die here."

"Mom, Dad, I love you. [Younger sister's name hidden, repeated], please don't go on a school field trip, at least you must not if you don't want to end up like your older brother. Please let me live, let me live, let me live. This is the end. Can you see me tilted?

"Thanks. Really, though, what's happening to the kids who were on the deck?"

[A call between Sewol and Jindo Coastal VTS]

Coastal VTS: Sewol, Sewol, Jindo Coastal VTS. Sewol, Sewol, Jindo Coastal VTS. Sewol, is your ship sinking?

Sewol: Yes, it is. Tell the the coast guard to hurry, please.

"So, there's a high possibility they have fallen off [the balcony outside]. And earlier, from the deck, the deck doesn't have windows. So I'm saying it's more dangerous."

"What you are looking at right now...?"

ON-BOARD ANNOUNCEMENT: Students of Danwon High School and other passengers, this is a safety announcement. Do not move from the second floor, but please stand by.

"Right now, the ship is rolled over. I feel like vomiting. Now my legs are shaky. I'm feeling nauseous too. I'm in front of a guy calmly holding his cellphone."

ON-BOARD ANNOUNCEMENT: This is an information announcement once again. The passengers who are able to put on the  jackets, please put on the life jackets.

"I don't understand what's happening. Them telling us to wear the life vests, doesn't that mean the ship is sinking?"

"Ahh, we will have to jump into the sea."

"Ahh, this is a real emergency. [Expletive] - don't hold it."

"I'm not holding it, I'm not holding it. It's just touching."

"No, don't hold onto that. You might fall off trying to hold onto that."

"Hey, we're playing with smartphones in the midst of this situation."

"Audacious Koreans, we are."

"Hey [hidden name], look at our real, last audacity."

"Me, too. We're going to swim out to sea like this ...."

"Why are you holding it up?"

"I feel like vomiting now."

ON-BOARD ANNOUNCEMENT: Those of you who can reach the life jackets, please pass them around, pass them around. Make it possible for people to put them on, don't move from your current location, please stand by. Once again, this is the guidance announcement. Do not move from your current position.

"I wonder how [hidden name] is doing? [Hidden name] and who else? [Hidden name], [hidden name] and who else, too, is missing?"

"I thought we were on schedule. What is this? They said we were leaving at 12."

"It's hot, it's scary."

"You scared? Oh, the baby's crying. It's OK, it's OK."

"What, there's a baby? There's a baby. This is driving me crazy. This is a real emergency."

"Give us more life vests."

"I have to get this kind of telephone – those are hard to find."

"No more?"
[Reference to life vests.]

"No more, no more."

"Any more behind you, in the rear?"

"No more."

"Why is no one being sent to the women's room there?"

"I feel dizzy, I feel dizzy."

"Huh? Dizzy?"

"Where's the teacher?"

"I want to know, too."

"Is the teacher alright?"

"I received a text message from the teacher."

"What does it say?"

"'Are the kids OK?'"

"Ask the teacher what's happening."

"The teacher is not checking messages, for now."

"Ahh..."

This is the end of the recording. You can play the full video in Korean in the window below.

[CountDeMoney]

Obviously the smoking gun over Benghazi.

[jimmy olsen]

People here are already so fucking pissed, this is just going to send them straight through the roof.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/2014/0502/Seoul-subway-crash-leaves-scores-injured

Seoul subway crash leaves scores injured

This was the first major incident involving public transportation in South Korea since the deadly ferry boat sinking last month.

By Hyung-Jin Kim, Associated Press / May 2, 2014

A subway train plowed into the back of another train at a station in South Korea's capital on Friday, injuring about 200 people, including about 150 who were hospitalized with bruises and other mostly minor injuries, officials said.

Local media reported there were long delays in providing instructions to passengers about what to do. That struck a nerve in South Korea, where the captain in an April 16 ferry sinking that killed hundreds of people has been condemned for waiting 30 minutes to issue an evacuation order as the ship sank.

A preliminary investigation suggested the train's automatic distance control system may have malfunctioned, subway officials said.

The driver of the moving train told officials that he applied the emergency brake after noticing a stop signal but wasn't able to halt in time, Seoul Metro official Jeong Su-young told a briefing.

Fire officer Kim Kyung-su said emergency officials arrived at the scene about two to three minutes after a passenger informed them of the accident.

Kim said about 200 people received relatively minor injuries except for two who suffered fractures and serious bruises. He said about 150 people remained hospitalized.

Several hospitals said none of their patients were seriously hurt. Hanyang University Medical Center said it treated 36 subway passengers for minor external injuries.

Lee Dong-hyun, a passenger on the incoming train, described a chaotic scene after the crash. "It stopped suddenly ... and everyone screamed," he said. Lee said the door leading to the next car was crushed and couldn't be opened.

The accident comes as South Koreans are criticizing the government for lax safety practices that many feel contributed to the sinking of the ferry Sewol, which left more than 300 people, mostly high school students, dead or missing.

The subway accident received extensive media coverage and was the top news on television and social media sites.

"I was so surprised and wasn't sure what to do," said Lim Seong-eun, 26, who commutes by subway every day.

Lim said her mother called her to tell her about the accident and ask if she was on the train.

"It's been less than one month since the Sewol disaster and I'm a little anxious that an accident like this happened in a place used by lots of people," Lim said.

[jimmy olsen]

I've got my eyes peeled for him.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/KOR-01-220514.html

   
The many masks of Yoo Byung-eun
By Aidan Foster-Carter

Who is Yoo Byung-eun? More to the point, where is Yoo Byung-eun? South Korea's most wanted man, known locally as the billionaire without a face, is nothing if not elusive. On May 20, South Korean prosecutors set up a 40-strong team to track him down after he had ignored a second summons to present himself at their offices in Incheon, the port city west of Seoul.

The same day, soon-to-be-ex prime minister Chung Hong-won told the National Assembly that "the government should try and confiscate all his fortune" - and for good measure his family's as well. Yoo's two sons and a daughter have ignored summonses, just like daddy.

Strong words, considering that Yoo has yet to be formally charged



with any offense - much less found guilty. But that's South Korean justice for you. The concept of innocent till proven guilty, or even sub judice - that's Latin for STFU, mass media, lest you prejudice any chance of a fair trial - is widely ignored. Day after day in real time, prosecutors shamelessly leak tasty morsels of what is so far only suspicion, to a press which then prints them as if they were fact.

Which indeed they may well turn out to be, once the mills of justice have done their work. It's not that I'm defending the guy or anything. But this is surely no way to run a judicial system.

Yonhap, the semi-official news agency, said on May 20 that Yoo faces "a host of corruption charges, including embezzlement, dereliction of duty, tax evasion and bribery, according to the prosecutors". One more reminder: he hasn't actually been indicted for any of this, yet.

But the net is closing in. So, who is Yoo Byung-eun? A man of many disguises and carefully honed identities, some currently being shed in hopes to thwart those trying to track him down.

First and foremost this means the South Korean government, which has swung into action big-time. A phalanx of authorities - police, prosecutors, tax authorities, financial regulators, customs, you name it - are hard on the trail of the man they believe to be ultimately behind Chonghaejin Marine. That's the company which owned and operated the 6,825 ton Sewol, Korea's largest ferry until it suddenly listed and sank on April 16. As you doubtless know all too well by now, more than 300 people drowned. Most were teenagers from a single year-group in a single school near Seoul, who were heading for an Easter break on the holiday island of Jeju.

More than a month later, this awful tragedy continues to grip the country. On May 19, a tearful President Park Geun-hye apologized, not for the first time. Many questions arise, but these are not directly our subject here. Mine is a simpler quest, or should be. Who is Yoo Byung-eun?

Covering his tracks
I too have been trying to track him down, online. This was easier a month ago than now. Even then, Yoo dissembled. Lately, someone has been trying very hard to hide or erase his tracks.

But they reckoned without Archive.org. In case you don't know it, this amazing site trawls the Web continuously, caching everything it can. You can't guarantee to find every web page that has ever existed, but there's a good chance. This has been a vital resource for Sherlock AFC.

So, who is Yoo? Oh but please, call him Ahae: he'd prefer that. (It means child in old Korean, which may be significant.) The most successful and least controversial of Yoo's many guises, Ahae is a nature photographer. He's best known for taking 2.7 million pictures, no less, from a single window: recording the changing seasons, passing birds and animals, and much more.

These are lovely images, no question. At Ahae.com on Archive.org for April 30 [1], you can see how this site used to open. It's one of the most beautiful things that I've ever watched on the Web. A similar half-hour slideshow, with new age music, is still there to enjoy at Ahae.com.

But better to watch it on YouTube. [2] For Ahae.com now opens as Ahaenews.com, and to reach the photos requires scrolling down past some tendentious talking heads. Curators et al from London, Paris - Ahae has exhibited at Versailles - Florence, Prague and Moscow have been wheeled out to sing his praises. Mike von Joel, described as Editor in Chief of State Media in London (new to me), deplores the "insidious calumnies currently being directed at the Korean photographer and artist we know in the UK as AHAE" (do we? Capitals in the original).

Professor Milan Knizak, former Director of the National Gallery in Prague, goes further. He declares that "Korea Should Be Proud of People like AHAE" (fat chance). All this is subtitled and printed in Korean, leaving no doubt of the intended target audience of this quixotic quest.

But who is Ahae? Even before the Sewol storm broke, he seemed self-effacing - literally. The only images of him on Ahae.com were shot from behind: cap on head, camera pressed to eye. I can find no pictures of him at all on the new, exculpatory Ahaenews.com. Nor is he named there in full, though we learn he is Yoo - and that one of his sons is known in Paris as Keith.

Many talents, he says
If this suggests modesty, think again. Before the Sewol sank, Ahae.com featured a long (2,000 word) "Introduction To Ahae And His Photography". This puffed a genius, again unnamed, of infinite talents: "inventor, entrepreneur, philanthropist, environmental activist, martial artist, painter, sculptor, poet, and photographer." (Spot the missing one? We'll come back to that.)

A clue: he clearly thinks he is God's gift. A Korean born in Japan in 1941, thus aged 73, he is a seventh degree black belt in Taekwondo, and has "registered and owned over one thousand patents and trademarks" in his business career. This includes health products and "the largest organic lavender farm in Southern California". As well as, ahem, "various boats and small ocean-going ships that now plough the waters of the Han River in Seoul and further afield".

For some reason he doesn't want you to see this now, but in vain: it's still up at Archive.org. [3] What he does want you to read is a press release issued on April 25. [4] Yoo waited nine days to express "profound sadness" at the ferry disaster, but once again his main focus is himself. He insists he had nothing to do with Chonghaejin, while admitting his sons are its shareholders.

A wiser man would have left it there - and said sorry sooner. Not Yoo. His press release then degenerates into a narcissistic, evasive whinge about an "undeserved attack against AHAE, his character and his credentials as an artist." Knizak's "Korea should be proud of people like AHAE" is trotted out again. The fact that Yoo had already been slapped with a travel ban is airily dismissed: "This blanket approach is standard for investigations by Korean regulators."

It gets worse. All this has "brought back painful memories from 1991 to Mr Yoo when he was the undeserved focus of a frenzied media circus, and then subsequently fully exonerated". He was found to have "no link" to "a major mass suicide scandal related to a religious cult".

"Fully exonerated" is an odd description of being jailed for four years, as Yoo was in 1992. And "no link"? That's iffy, too. More on this murky blast from the past in just a moment.

Denying God.com
For now, recall that as Ahae Yoo professed no fewer than nine identities: from inventor via entrepreneur to photographer. Yet he omitted a 10th and crucial string to his bow: Preacher. For this side of Yoo we must look elsewhere, though here too he'd suddenly rather you didn't. And where else to seek religion if not @ God.com? Amazing webname, no? Modest or what?

But actually, as of mid-May, a terrible let-down. Go there now, and all you find is a brief (100 words) home page with six bald questions: "Does God exist? Is the Bible really true? Why are there so many religions and which one is right?" etc etc. But no answers. No salvation here.

Didn't Jesus warn against hiding your light under a bushel? And all in vain, for once again the invaluable Archive.org reveals what Yoo now wants to conceal. As recently as April 30 the questions posed on God.com came with answers. [5] Four short devotional books could be read there, with titles such as The Anchor of the Soul and God So Loved (in three parts). [6]

When I first found God.com in April, it also had an "About the Author" page. This credited one B E Yoo, who "for more than forty years has worked as an inventor and businessman to support the spreading of the gospel all over the world ... He continues to work for the sake of the gospel ... with the same firm belief that this is a message that everyone needs to hear." [7]

Well, maybe not everyone. Or indeed anyone. First, the author page disappeared sometime in early May. By May 17, all trace of the books themselves, titles and text, had vanished too. A strange faith this, where saving souls suddenly seems less urgent than saving someone's skin.

But here again evasiveness is pointless. Yoo can hardly delete his life history. It's well-known that in 1962 he co-founded the Evangelical Baptist Church (EBC). Prosecutors were quick to raid EBC's HQ. For a time, Yoo was thought to be hiding in a church facility in Anseong, south of Seoul, protected by hundreds of EBC faithful. Their loyalty, however misplaced, when all of South Korea is baying for his blood, puts to shame Ahae's strange failure to mention this - surely his core identity if he's sincere. Shades of the disciple Peter's notorious denial of Jesus. Authorities on Wednesday, backed by 25 buses filled with riot police, gained access to the facility following a nine-day stand-off after prosecutors won court permission to enter the complex by force if necessary, but they found no sign of Yoo.

So where does the EBC fit in? And what was that nasty business back in the 1990s? The death toll was lower than the Sewol, but the circumstances far more sinister. A vivid blogpost from 2010 at the excellent Ask-a-Korean unravels a tangled and lurid history, suddenly relevant. [8]

A cult murder-suicide
The nasty part was a 1987 mass murder-suicide. Thirty-two bodies were found at a facility belonging to Odaeyang, a firm that fronted for a religious cult. Fingers were pointed at Yoo at the time. But as he insists, prosecutors could find nothing linking him to that shocking crime as such.

Yet he certainly figures in the wider picture. Odaeyang was a breakaway from the EBC, and reportedly the money trail (US$17 million at today's prices) led to Semo Ferries, owned by Yoo. In 1992, Yoo was jailed for fraud, guilty of siphoning off church funds into his business. Echoing this, prosecutors are now suggesting that EBC money flowed into Chonghaejin too.

And Semo? From 1986, its pleasure boats plied the Han river in Seoul, thanks to Yoo's ties with then dictator Chun Doo-hwan. Semo went bust in 1997. Unfazed, Yoo founded Chonghaejin in 1999 using Semo's assets. His empire overall is said to be worth at least 240 billion won (US$231 million); but one estimate doubles that, and local media call him a billionaire.

Church and business still seem to overlap. EBC's 20,000 followers reportedly include most top officials in Chonghaejin's 26-odd affiliates - this mini-chaebol (conglomerate) ranges from ferries and shipbuilding to paint and door-to-door selling - and most of the Sewol crew, who nearly all saved themselves while abandoning their young passengers. As a Korea Times headline starkly put it: "Infidel Sewol captain and sailors [are] devout Guwon faithfuls".

Gu-what? It means salvation. In the hothouse world of Korean sects, messiahs are many. But the Korea Times' lurid language - infidel, heathen, pagan - misleads. More precisely, South Korea's mainstream Protestants have condemned EBC and its ilk as heretical. The theology is abstruse, but if that grabs you then try this lengthy counterblast [9] - from Nagaland in eastern India, of all places. Korea is Asia's most Protestant nation; its missionaries get everywhere.

What next? The authorities are determined to nab Yoo. Sooner or later they will, perhaps even by the time you read this. Some suggest Yoo in fact slipped away from the Anseong facility and is now hiding out with supporters in Seoul. One son and daughter are overseas. All this could run and run.

Based on his behavior so far, the least likely outcome is that Yoo will do the decent thing and turn himself in. In the 1980s, he used to tell his flock to obey the law, even though that meant Chun's dictatorship. Today's democratically legitimate laws surely deserve no less respect.

We know how he hates a "frenzied media circus". In a rare interview in 1999 after his release from jail, he said he felt "really insulted" that people linked him to Odaeyang, adding: "I feel like I'm a woman living in a small village and one day you suddenly got sexually assaulted." (Hat-tip to Reuters, who early on did more research on Yoo than most media then or since.) [10]

Selfish salvation
This time may well be worse. Might Yoo seek martyrdom? He doesn't sound the type. Maybe theology is relevant here. The reasons EBC and its ilk (who are legion in Korea) are seen as heretical by the Protestant mainstream include their rejection of religious authority in favor of unmediated individual salvation. That carries risks. One is if believers are told all their sins are now forgiven and interpret this to mean that whatever they do is right. Or worse, if the leader of such a group gets the same idea into his head. You can see where that could lead.

Like I said, I don't prejudge. But if Yoo is a man of faith, let him come out now and face the music. And should he ever write a full and honest autobiography, I sure as hell want to read it.

Meanwhile, we have his beautiful tranquil nature shots. As different as could be from other images, unbearable even to imagine. Images of hundreds of children, their lives cruelly stolen, breaking their fingers desperately clawing at portholes as the chilly waters of the West Sea entombed them. Images of their young bodies, bloated and rotting now; a few still to be found and handed back to families who will grieve for as long as they live, and maybe then some.

The link is even closer than you think. One theory on why the Sewol sank, and so fast, is that it was overloaded: both with freight, and by having an possibly top-heavy extra story added in a refit in 2012 when Chonghaejin bought it from Japan (when it was already 18 years old and should have been scrapped). The extra floor was used to pack in more cabins - and also for a gallery displaying Ahae's pictures. I don't think I can bear to look at those any more.