Two people have been arrested after a ferry ran aground overnight in South Korea on Thursday. The coast guard said that the first officer and an Indonesian crew member were detained for suspected gross negligence.
It's believed that they were at the helm of the vessel and are suspected of waiting too long to override the autopilot, allowing the ship to run into an uninhabited island in a busy passage approaching the southwestern port of Mokpo, according to the coast guard officers.
However, an investigator in Mokpo told a briefing that the crew members in the latest incident had given conflicting testimony.
"Whatever their testimonies so far, we're looking at gross negligence," Kim Hwang-gyun said.
In initial testimony, the first officer said he was watching news on his phone at the time of the incident.
Kim said the investigation would include a forensic examination of the crew members' phones, the ferry's navigation data and vessel traffic control in the area.
The operator of the ferry, Seaworld, did not answer telephone calls seeking comment at its Mokpo office.
Several people received medical attention but no lives were in danger and the ferry sustained minor damage to the hull, other coast guard officials have said.
The vessel did not veer off course and was sailing at 22 knots (40 kph) within regulation when it failed to make a turn, Kim, the coast guard investigator, said.
Authorities will examine whether the ship was unable to change course in time in the area's narrow navigation channels.
The 26,546-tonne ship, with a passenger capacity of 1,010 and multiple decks for cargo and passenger vehicles, ran aground as it approached Mokpo from the southern island of Jeju but remained upright as all 267 people on board were rescued.
The incident rekindled memories in South Korea of the 2014 Sewol ferry disaster that killed more than 300 people, many of whom were children on a school trip. The Sewol sank in the same area but further out to sea.
Kazakhstan-linked hackers stole thousands of national security documents from Tajikistan, a cybersecurity company has said. ...
Four Turkish military personnel have been killed after an S-70 helicopter crashed in the eastern province of Malatya on Thursday, Türkiye'...
Microsoft struggled to restore its services on Friday after a major outage disrupted Outlook, Teams and Copilot across the United States and Asia-P...
European leaders gathered in Dublin on Thursday, 12 November, for the ninth European Political Community (EPC) summit, with security, defence and energy high on the agenda. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev held talks focused on peace, trade and regional cooperation.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres delivered a stark warning at this year's COP31 summit, saying the climate crisis iss advancing faster than governments' efforts to contain it.
Iran will not let a single particle of its enriched nuclear material leave the country, and any new U.S. attack would be met with strikes on distant American bases, Iranian security chief Mohsen Rezaei has said.
Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang is stepping down amid reports linking him to a woman suspected by U.S. authorities of spying for China, throwing the future of the $4 trillion chipmaker into uncertainty.
Four million workers across Spain joined a general strike on Wednesday over the country’s deepening housing crisis, unions said, bringing disruption to factories, ports, shops and public transport just weeks before a snap general election.
Microsoft struggled to restore its services on Friday after a major outage disrupted Outlook, Teams and Copilot across the United States and Asia-Pacific region.
President Vladimir Putin agreed on Thursday to let European representatives join the next round of Ukraine peace talks while the United States continues to work towards what could become the largest prisoner exchange of the Russia-Ukraine war.
Azerbaijan and the UK have pledged to strengthen defence, trade and education cooperation after signing a joint declaration elevating relations to a strategic level in Dublin, Ireland on Thursday (12 November).
More than 333,000 people have been forced from their homes in Yemen since the beginning of August as fighting has escalated, including more than 24,000 in the past week alone, the United Nations said on Thursday.
A court in Russia’s Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad has sentenced human rights lawyer Maria Bontsler to 12 years in prison on treason charges, after prosecutors accused her of passing sensitive information to Ukraine.
You can download the AnewZ application from Play Store and the App Store.
What is your opinion on this topic?
Leave the first comment