KOREAN FERRY TRAGEDIES

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27096, 20 July 1953, Page 3

KOREAN FERRY TRAGEDIES

HEAVY LOSSES OF LIFE

SEOUL GOVERNMENT’S INVESTIGATION

(From a Reuter Correspondent.) „ SEOUL. For South Korean travellers who take the coastal ferry boats, an old saying, “beneath the thin planks lies a hell,” is now an eerie threat. In the last five months, at least eight coastal,,boats sank or capsized, killing 650 passengers and crew. The thin bilges of superannuated ferries helped to establish the veracity of the old saying.

Also destroyed with the ill-fated ships and their passengers were hundreds of bales of United Nations relief rice and other supplies which were to be delivered to refugees.

In the worst ferry disaster, the 100ton Chung Kyong capsized and sent 369 passengers and crew to a freezing death off Pusan in January. The disasters almost paralysed South Korean sea transport and immobilised more than 80 per cent, of available ships. Travellers had been avoiding land routes - where buses and trains had been attacked by guerrillas and bandits, and the coastal ferries were popular.

'Hie result was a ship-building boom. Private and official companies remodelled fishing boats, divers went down to refloat sunken and rusted Japanese boats, bucket seats were fitted on landing draft sold by the United States forces. Critics said ships were “assembled with cardboard.”, but most of what could float and move managed to obtain navigation permits and joined the fleet of coastal ferries. Public demand was so high that ships were run without thorough maintenance.

By the time the Korean war started, breakdowns were increasing. Incidents were reported frequently, but the country was fighting communist troops at the front and guerrillas behind the line, and there was no time to make any thorough investigation. After the capsize of the Pusan-Yosu ferry Chung Kyong, it was found that the ship, which had a legal capacity of 100 passengers and no cargo, had also carried 100 bales of rice. The National Assembly demanded an investigation. Six days after the incident, while divers were still pulling trapped victims out of the Chung Kyong’s cabins, another ferry sank off Western Korea, and 165 passengers were drowned. President Syngman Rhee dismissed his Transport Minister (Mr Kim Suk Kwan), whose brother was co-owner of the Chung Kyong, and ordered the new Minister to re-exahiine all navigation licences.

Licences cancelled by a Presidential order tied up all the ferry boats. A hurried investigation showed that South Korea had 248 navigable passenger boats totalling about 30,000 tons. It was also learned that 90 per cent, of them were wooden craft and two thirds of them more than 25 years old. The President ordered the cancellation of licences of all boats except 45. The Government sealed the compasses on those ships ordered to stop operations, and cancelled their diesel oil rations.

Subsequent investigation also disclosed that 26 lighthouses and 13 floating signal lights destroyed during the war had been left unrepaired. Newspapers said the skippers of the ferries were forced to pilot their ships by their “sixth sense.”

The captain of the ferry Chung Kyong was indicted on a murder charge, and was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. At emergency Cabinet meetings. President Syngman Rhee and his Cabinet decided to rebuild the coastal transport fleet. According to Government announcement, 300.000,000 hwan would be spent to build 300 ships, all of 100 tons and to buy 118 ships from overseas. The South Korean Government also began negotiating with UNKRA (United Nations Korean Reconstruction Agency) for prompt allocation to rebuild Korean shipyards and port facilities.

According to a report from the port of Yosu, on the South Korean coast, a group of men have been selling patched-up United States Army jeep tyres as life-buoys for ferry passengers. They recently added a new item to their stock —a waterproof money bag made out of United States Army raincoat material.

lieve that suits should be complementary to the man,” he said. “They should reflect some of the character of the man but they should not conceal his identity. “In terns of art, it is fatal to put a beautiful picture in a gaudy frame that commands all the attention. Our suits are complementary. They do not take all the attention away from the wearer.” Edwardian Influence None of the 21 suits worn by men students from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art had the pronounced Edwardian look that is said to be high fashion in men’s wear this year. But the influence was evident from the fact that many of the lounge suits shown had cuffs on the sleeves and narrow trousers with no turn-ups. The centre back-slits and side slits in lounge jackets have also been replaced by ingenious inverted pleats, a startling men’s fashion innovation.

For the fashionable “man-about-town,” Hie tailors designed ta singlebreasted Regency town suit. Cuffs gripped the wrists, the jacket had long double-breasted lapels, and the trousers had no turn-ups. For Ascot, a formal morning suit was shown, but the whole suit was in very light grey worsted, with a doe-skin double breasted waistcoat.

Dinner jackets all had moire silk facings, instead of the usual silk, and had cuffs on the sleeves. Evening dress tail-coats were set off with midnight blue velvet collars as the latest innovation, Introduced as the “piece de resistance” of the show was an evening dress cape, lined in red silk, with a velvet collar fastened by gilt chains at the throat. Women reporters at the show sighed at it in the manner usual at their own “haute couture” shows, but there was little response from the male audience. Most of the clapping from them was for the actor-manne-quin who had the nerve to wear the cape.