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| Sajo Industries CEO Kim Jeong-su, left, talks to the families of fishermen listed missing following the sinking of the trawler, Oryong 501, on Monday in the Bering Sea, during their meeting in the firm's offices in Busan, Tuesday. Beside Kim is Lim Chae-ok, a Sajo executive. / Yonhap |
Rescuers recover 4 empty lifeboats
By Kim Rahn
The sinking of a Korean trawler in Russian waters in the Bering Sea on Monday was a man-made disaster caused by reckless fishing in bad weather, families of the missing crewmen alleged Tuesday.
Relatives of missing Korean sailors claimed that the ship owner, Sajo Industries, pushed ahead with fishing despite high waves and strong winds at the time of the accident.
Russian officials said rescuers have found four torn lifeboats at the scene.
Rescuers also saw one dead body floating, but were not able to recover it due to a snowstorm, they said.
The 1,753-ton trawler, the Oryong 501, sank at around 2:20 p.m. Monday, with 60 seamen onboard the ship, including 11 Koreans. Eight people were rescued, but one of them, a Korean, later died of hypothermia, while 52 others are still missing, according to the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries.
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"It seems the vessel tried fishing in bad weather conditions with high winds and waves 4 meters high," Kim Cheon-sik, a family member of one of the missing fishermen told reporters. "At Jeju Island, ships come back to port in such weather conditions."
A Sajo executive said it is the captain's role to decide whether to go fishing or not. "People at the head office in Seoul cannot know weather conditions at sea, so the captain usually decides," Sajo director Lim Chae-ok said in a radio interview.
The families also claimed that it took four hours from the ship's first tilting to its eventual sinking, but the company failed to order the crewmembers to evacuate and prepare for rescue measures at a proper time.
"The firm says it is the captain's role to make an evacuation order. But in an emergency, the head office should make the order. If the ship has problems, the company should have done its best to rescue the sailors, such as mobilizing other larger-sized ships to the scene for rescue work, but it failed to do so," they claimed.
One family member claimed that when he talked to one of the missing sailors over the phone before the accident, he said that the company had ordered them to do additional fishing, although they already had the assigned amount of catch.
Lim countered that the ship was not carrying an excessive amount of fish. "Due to bad weather, we suspect too much water came into a fish container and the container became waterlogged."
Some claimed the old ship was the cause of the accident, as the Oryong 501 was made in Spain 36 years ago and Sajo bought it in 2010. Lim refuted this, saying it was remodeled in 2003 and has performance similar to vessels newly built at that time.
Meanwhile, the rescue operation continued Tuesday, but no further survivors have been found as yet.
"Four ships from Korea and Russia are searching for the missing sailors, but the operation is not easy as the waves are high," a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official said.
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