Seoul takes down memorial altar for ferry Sewol victims

A big yellow ribbon is hung on the wall of a new memorial hall for victims of the ferry Sewol, at Seoul Metropolitan Library, downtown Seoul, Friday. The Seoul Metropolitan Government, which built the hall, removed an altar that had been set up on Seoul Plaza in front of Seoul City Hall. / Yonhap

By Kim Se-jeong

The Seoul Metropolitan Government on Friday removed a memorial altar set up for victims of the Sewol tragedy, from the Seoul Plaza in front of City Hall, almost seven months after the ferry sank.

It set up another memorial nearby.

On April 16, the Sewol capsized and sank, killing more than 300 onboard. Most of the passengers were schoolchildren from Danwon High School in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, on a field trip to Jeju Island. The government stopped the search operation last week with the bodies of nine passengers yet to be found.

Bereaved family members of the victims and Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon joined in the last commemoration at the altar earlier in the day.

The city government opened a new memorial hall inside the Seoul Metropolitan Library, located just in front of City Hall.

Park visited the new memorial hall and left a commemorative message on the yellow wall there.

In the meantime, civic groups urged the government to salvage the ferry intact, despite suggestions from some ruling Saenuri Party members that the Sewol not be salvaged because of the huge cost involved.

Last week, the government announced it would stop search work for the nine who remain missing. The relatives of the missing consented to the move, but want the ferry to be taken out of the sea as soon as possible so that remains of their loved ones can be retrieved if they are still inside.

While the government said Thursday that it would form a task force to discuss the feasibility of salvaging the ferry, civic groups demanded a speedy operation.

“This is not just for the families. We need the ferry to figure out what went wrong that day,” said one activist.

Meanwhile, Kim Han-sik, the chief executive of Chonghaejin Marine which operated the ferry, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for negligence resulting in death and embezzlement on Thursday. The ferry, overloaded with cargo, tilted sharply when making a turn and failed to regain balance before sinking.