COLD SEAS, buffeting winds and strong currents yesterday frustrated South Korean divers trying to reach a sunken warship, which is thought to have taken 46 crew down with it when it exploded on Friday night.
Officials initially feared the 104-man corvette, the Cheonan, could have been torpedoed by North Korea, but are playing down that theory, saying they were unaware of any unusual manoeuvres by the nuclear-armed North in the disputed waters. Other theories are that its munitions exploded, that it snagged a rock or struck a mine that had broken loose.
President Lee Myung-bak’s office said the government was prioritising the continuation of rescue work before investigating the cause by raising the ship from relatively shallow water. That should take around three weeks. “The president is talking about our brave soldiers in the present tense. He is still hopeful,” said Cho Hyun-jin, spokesman for the presidential office, the Blue House.
Days after the sinking in bitterly cold water, the focus is now shifting to families of the crew, who are venting their rage against the government. Tearful parents, citing their sons’ complaints, argued that the ship was unseaworthy and accused the government of being uncommunicative.
Mr Cho said ministers were trying to explain to relatives why rescue work was so difficult. Although better than they were on Friday night, conditions in the Yellow Sea remain cold and choppy. The loss of military lives is a highly inflammatory issue in a country where military service is still obligatory.
Pyongyang has been conspicuously silent on the sinking. If North Korea is found to have sunk the ship, the attack would mean a sharp escalation of tensions on the peninsula. North and South Korean ships exchanged fire in the same stretch last November. Ships from the two states fought battles there in 1999 and 2002, with dozens of sailors killed.
Pyongyang’s attention is centred on a dispute over suspended South Korean tourist trips to the North. Pyongyang wants the trips resumed, but Seoul says it has not received assurances that tourists will be safe since a holidaying South Korean housewife was shot dead by soldiers in 2008.
North Korea is reeling from a bungled currency reform last year which triggered inflation and closed food markets. – (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010)