For most Koreans, especially parents with children, the past five days felt like five years. The entire nation had to sit and watch as nearly 300 young students remained lost, unable to escape a submerged ship in the dark cold sea. The trauma from this will last a long time.
Older citizens fell speechless in the face of the incomprehensible and unforgiveable behavior of some of their peers ― chiefly the captain and senior crew of the sunken ferry. These professionals entrusted with hundreds of lives abandoned their ship and passengers and fled for personal safety ahead of most others onboard.
Had they held a modicum of ethics, a sense of responsibility or even a conscience as grown-ups, they would have taken care of teenagers who had yet to reach maturity.
The prosecution is urged to seek the heaviest sentences possible for those who demonstrated such ugly behavior, as the National Assembly makes moves to revise relevant laws, to offer solace for the relatives of the dead victims and prevent a recurrence of similar disasters caused mainly by extreme negligence and a total lack of responsibility.
Thankfully, not everyone on the Sewol behaved so wretchedly. There were heroes and heroines too. A young, female crew on board the ship gave her life jacket to a student and refused to leave the ship; a teacher of Danwon High School also sacrificed himself to save as many as students as possible; a passenger helped lead a dozen students to rescue helicopters, putting his own life at risk, then expressed regret for not saving more; and young students helped a five-year-old to safety.
Their names, along with those of the innocent victims, should be remembered by all Koreans.
We can reaffirm from these events that what will rescue this society from the ruins of this crisis will neither be big ideas nor bragging politicians and powerful bureaucrats but ordinary citizens and who will put the safety and wellbeing of others ahead of theirs.
And there are divers of course who risk their own lives each waking moment during search and rescue operations. We hope they will do their very best until the end even as hopes are fading. Each human life matters enormously and in this case, the saving of even one life possible is tantamount to saving the whole nation.
That will no doubt take nothing less than a miracle. But if, from this disaster, Korea comes to realize the plain truth that human lives are more precious than anything, this will be a miracle born from the loss of these priceless lives.