MOKPO -- The number of recovered items belonging to the victims of a ferry sinking disaster has increased to 157 since workers started to search for the remains of those still missing in the wreck of the vessel late last month, local government officials said Monday.
The Mokpo municipal government in South Korea's southwestern province of South Jeolla made public a list of 44 items and their photos, which it received from the headquarters for the search, on its website the same day.
This photo, taken from the Web site of the Mokpo municipality on May 1, 2017, shows the shirt of a frayed school uniform recovered from the 6,800-ton Sewol ferry that sank on April 16, 2014, in waters off the country's southwestern coast. (Yonhap)
The items comprised 20 articles of clothing including school uniforms with no name tags, eight pairs of shoes, two bags, two electrical devices and 12 other items. If the items are not picked up by families within the next six months, they will enter the care of the government.
People related to the victims to which the items belonged can claim them using their identification cards or other evidence of their relationship to the victim at the search headquarters between 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. every day.
An official at the municipality said, "The items transferred to us are those which have been cleaned and dried. Anyone who is confirmed to have a relationship with their owners is able to pick them up." Three of the 157 items have been returned to the families of their owners to date.
The 6,800-ton Sewol ferry that sank on April 16, 2014, in waters off the country's southwest coast claimed the lives of 304 people, most of them teenage students on a school trip.
The hull was raised from the bottom of the sea and put into dry dock at a local port in Mokpo, some 410 kilometers south of Seoul, last month. The bodies of nine people, including four students and two teachers, have not yet been found. The search for the remains is scheduled to be completed within three months.
A special fact-finding body has said that a probe to determine the exact cause of the tragic sinking will begin late this month. (Yonhap)