Three-quarters of the passengers aboard the Korean ferry that sank Wednesday came from a single high school now shrouded in sadness.
Danwon HS in South Korea’s Ansan province near Seoul sends its second-year students for an annual spring excursion before the pressure of their third-year college entrance examinations takes hold.
The school quickly became the site of a makeshift vigil where family members, school staff and students anxiously waited for news.
It wasn’t good. At least four people were dead, and nearly 300 were unaccounted for Wednesday.
Parents wept as they searched for their children’s names among a list of survivors rescued from the ferry.
“I’m angry about the confusing reports from various government agencies on the number of people rescued,” said Kang Eun-gyung, the aunt of a student on the trip, according to The Wall Street Journal.
“They are giving us different figures. I don’t know whom to believe. Initially, they said all the students have been rescued, but now they’re saying that not all of them have been rescued.”
A total of 325 students, most of the school’s second-year class, were on the boat, accompanied by 14 teachers.
They were on their way to Jeju, a resort island off the southern coast of the Korean peninsula, for a four-day trip.
According to a report in the mainstream Korean-language newspaper Chosun Ilbo, students and parents had been consulted before the trip about whether to fly or take a boat to Jeju.
The consensus was to take the ferry because it was cheaper.