The Sewol Ferry is Eventually Lifted onto the Surface
The Sewol Ferry is Eventually Lifted onto the Surface
  • Reporter Gwak Jun-ho
  • 승인 2017.04.07 10:35
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On Apr. 16, 2014, at around 8:50 A.M., along with 476 students, staff, crew members and the others on the dock, The Sewol Ferry sank. Due to the incident, 304 people died and 9 are missing. On Mar. 26, 1073 days after the incident, The Sewol Ferry was completely lifted onto the surface, for recovery and investigation.
The Sewol Ferry was raised and shipped directly onto the semi-submersible vessel on Mar. 25, at 4:10 A.M. After the shipment process, the ship was completely raised onto the surface on the same day at 9:15 P.M. Floating the Sewol Ferry started on Mar. 25 after two jacking barges were completely separated from the vessel, and was completed within nine hours. After floating the Sewol Fe-rry up until it was a semi-submersible vessel, the sea water and oil remaining in the ship were removed. To avoid dumping additional oil products inside the ship, the extraction of oil and sea water was
done by natural extraction process. During this process, as concerned, the extracted oil was spread through a seaweed farm in Dong-geo-cha-do, Jodo-gun.
The extraction process was completed a day earlier, and after fixing the Sewol Ferry with the semi-submersible vessel, the ship embarked to a port in Mokpo. The distance between Mokpo New Port and the floating point is about 87 kilometers. With the speed of a semi-submersible ship (10 km/h) the vessel and the Sewol Ferry will arrive in 9 to 10 hours.
After arriving at the port, lifting the Sewol Ferry onto the Mokpo New Port wharf will follow. About the anticipated completion date of the full recovery of the Sewol Ferry, Yun Hak-bae, the vice-minister of Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, said: “Barring unforeseen circumstances during the recovery process of the Sewol Ferry, the ship will arrive at the Mokpo New Port before Apr. 4.”