South Korea Ferry Disaster

After the Ferry disaster that put hundreds of passengers’, mostly teenagers’ lives in danger occurred in April, entire South Korea is in deep sorrow and great fury. After days of rescue effort and support from both private and public sectors, there is still no news about the any survivor from the sunk ferry. Even the words of presidents could not alleviate the despair of the families of the passengers who encountered this horrible tragedy. The clumsy response of the responsible departments, absence of executive control on the disaster and media’s coverage on the issue shed light on the failures of the institutions and South Korean society.

The ferry that encountered this terrible accident is known as one of the biggest ship that transports both passengers and luggage domestically in South Korea. Usually, ship with such size are not stable when the ship abruptly switches direction. In addition to that, there was pre-existing safety concern about the ferry since it is a boat that was supposedly be abandoned due to regulation on expiration date. However, the company that purchased the ferry relentless lobbied the legislative branch to extend the expiration date and successfully required the authorization to use the ferry for ten more years. Previous captains and workers of the ferry left their jobs due to the safety problems were not solved after the continuous report to the government institution which take charges on safety problems. The huge influence that the ferry company has on government department loosened the regulation enforcement led to this predicted accident. Besides the ship itself, irresponsible captains and crew members who left abandoned their duty and left the passengers in danger are certainly a huge part of the problem. One has to notice that the captain who is in charge of everything on the ferry is a contract-signed worker, which means that he is a temporary employee. Obviously, temporary workers lack the responsibility and loyalty to their jobs. Furthermore, many critics believe that the captain was not even granted the rights to commend and take control since he is a temporary worker. These problems with the safety of the ferry and the disappearance of the seamanship of the crew members demonstrate that there is a huge problem concerning the ethics of not only this particular corporation but also the whole industry. The greed of the profit-motivated corporation that would not hesitate to risk the lives of the passengers displayed that business ethics in Korea is sinking.

The anger of the families who lost their loved ones directed to the responsible government departments and institutions because of the the failure on emergency response to the accident and clumsy rescue attempts. The incompetence of the responsible institutions delayed the rescue effort which led to the more hopeless situation. The reason why the government could not effectively respond to this tragedy is that the system is of disaster control is extremly flawed. Most of the leaders of the departments that are in charge of such accidents on the sea are bureaucrats who do not possese professional knowledge on the matter. Also, those experts who have various experiences on rescue and knowledge lack the executive power to manage the rescue operations. The complex and ineffective disaster prevention and control system of the government exacerbated the situation of this tragedy. 

Several days after the tragedy of the ferry transporting hundreds of high school juniors to field trip became the biggest concern of the nation. People were curioius about the process of the rescue and the causes that cost the lives of the future of the nation. However, inaccurate information flooded on the internet and news papers. The false information brought to the viewers through news organizations created chaos among people. The coverages without fact checks had negative impacts on the families of the victims and rescue effort as well. The media’s culture that values the speed of the coverage rather than it’s quality and the viewing rates rather than the emotional status of the victims of the tragedy showed the sinking ethics of South Korea’s mainstream media.

In order to prevent the occurance of similar tragedies in the future, people should never forget this disaster: People shall not forget the victims of the tragedy; shall not forget the immoral individuals who are responsible for this accident; shall not forget those heroes who sacrificed themselves to save othes lives when they were facing the fear of death. Moreover, South Korea should take lessons from this accident and take it as a chance to increase the transparancy of corporation mangements, enhance the regulation, make the government disaster control system perfect and get rid of unethic media culture.