JINDO
Divers began retrieving bodies on Sunday from inside the submerged South Korean ferry that capsized four days ago with hundreds of children on board, as families angered by the pace of the rescue efforts scuffled with police.
Coastguard officials said 16 bodies had been removed from the ship which sank on Wednesday morning, pushing operations further along the painful transition from rescue to recovery and identification.
The retrieval of the first bodies from the interior came after prosecutors revealed that the officer at the helm of the 6,825-tonne Sewol when it capsised was not familiar with those particular waters.
The confirmed death toll from the disaster stood at 56 with 246 people still unaccounted for.
Three bodies were pulled out of the fully submerged ferry just before midnight and another 13 were recovered later Sunday morning, a coastguard spokesman said.
The breakthrough followed days of fruitless efforts by more than 500 divers to access the capsized ship, while battling powerful currents and near-zero visibility.
It was a watershed moment for distraught relatives who have clung desperately to the idea that some passengers may have survived in air pockets in the upturned vessel.
President Park Geun-Hye gave her personal assurance to the families of the hundreds still missing that salvage operations would only begin after all hope of finding survivors was extinguished.
Nearly 60 people have been confirmed dead, but more than 240 are still unaccounted for – most of them children on an organised high school holiday.
A psychological turning point came when divers began retrieving bodies from inside the ferry on Sunday.
Many relatives had hoped passengers may have survived in trapped air pockets, and feared that raising the ship would have fatal consequences.
While some remain convinced their loved ones may be alive, others have begun to accept the probability there will be no survivors, especially given the bodies found by the dive teams.