Twitter Korea said Thursday that a total of 29 million tweets have been generated about the Sewol ferry sinking since April 2014.

More than 15 million tweets were posted in a year right after the accident. From April 2015 to April 2016, the number of the related tweets stood at 5 million.


The volume of the related tweets increased again from the end of 2016 with the ouster of the former President Park Geun-hye. In the year from April 2016, the number of the tweets surged to 9 million.

Tweets in memory of the victims were posted from all around the world. Korea topped the list, followed by Thailand, Indonesia, the US, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, UK and Russia.

Many of the Sewol victims were those from Danwon High School, and one of the students aboard the ill-fated ship had posted a tweet as the Sewol ferry was tilting before sinking into the waters. Even though the account has been deactivated, Korean Twitter users are still mentioning the account to express their condolences.

By Im Eun-byel (silverstar@heraldcorp.com)