Anger as families wait to see bodies after South Korea plane crash | Global News Avenue

Hundreds of grieving people camped out at South Korea’s Muan International Airport, angry that they had yet to see the bodies of their loved ones after a Jeju Air plane crashed on Sunday.

Amid angry shouts, Police Inspector General Na Won-o explained that the delay was due to officials taking time to carefully identify all 179 victims, whose bodies were badly damaged in the accident.

“Can you guarantee that they will be reassembled?” a middle-aged man asked excitedly.

Another person asked that the victims’ remains be released as is, but Na said officials want to do their best to collect and match as many bodies as possible.

The horrific details left some family members in tears, while most stood in shocked silence and exhaustion.

The Boeing 737-800 passenger plane flying from Bangkok to Muan International Airport skidded off the runway after landing. hit the wall Shortly after 09:00 local time (00:00 GMT) on Sunday.

The accident killed 179 of the 181 people on board, making it the worst air disaster in South Korea.

Among the victims were four crew members, while two others were rescued from the wreckage.

One of the relatives of the victims interviewed by the BBC was Shin Gyu-ho, who lost two grandchildren and a son-in-law.

The 64-year-old was frustrated by the length of time the identification process was taking and said he considered smashing the PA system used for police briefings in anger.

Although Shin’s son-in-law’s body had been identified, he was told that his two grandchildren – a high school sophomore and a high school senior – were “too scattered to be identified.”

He said his daughter and granddaughter were hiding in a privacy tent at the airport because “they couldn’t stay together.”

For Maeng Gi-su’s nephew and the nephew’s two sons, a trip to Thailand to celebrate the end of their college entrance exams ended in tragedy when all three died on the plane.

“I can’t believe the whole family just disappeared,” Maeng, 78, told the BBC.

“My heart hurts so much.”

According to Yonhap News Agency, the 179 victims on flight 7C2216 ranged in age from 3 to 78 years old, but most were in their 40s, 50s and 60s. Authorities said two Thais were among the dead, while the others were believed to be Koreans.

Five of the dead were children under the age of ten, with the youngest passenger a three-year-old boy.

According to Yonhap News Agency, a man in his sixties said that five of his three generations of family members were on the plane, including his sister-in-law, his daughter, her husband and their young children.

Many passengers had been celebrating Christmas in Thailand and were preparing to return home.

Jongluk Doungmanee, a cousin of one of the victims, told BBC Thai she was “shocked” when she heard the news.

“I got goosebumps. I couldn’t believe it,” Pornphichaya Chalermsin said.

Jong-rok has been living in South Korea for the past five years, working in agriculture. She usually travels to Thailand twice a year during the holidays to visit her ailing father and her two children (ages 7 and 15) from a previous marriage.

This time she spent more than two weeks with her husband, who returned to South Korea in early December.

Porficharya said her father suffered from a heart condition and was “devastated” when he learned of her death.

“This is unbearable for him. This is his youngest daughter,” she said, adding that all three of his children were working abroad.

Another father, Jeon Je-young, 71, told Reuters that his daughter Mi-Sook, who was identified through fingerprints, was on her way home after traveling to Bangkok with friends to attend a celebration.

“My daughter is only in her 40s and this is what happened,” he said, adding that he last saw her on December 21 when she brought some food and a calendar for next year to his home. – This will be their home. The last moment together.

Mi-sook leaves behind a husband and a teenage daughter.

“It’s unbelievable,” Quan said.

One woman said her sister had been having a hard time, but as her life began to improve she decided to go to Thailand.

“She went through a lot of hardships and started traveling because her situation was just starting to improve,” she told Yonhap News Agency.

The two flight attendants who survived the crash were found in the rear of the plane, the most intact part of the wreckage.

One of them, a 33-year-old man surnamed Lee, was rushed to a hospital in Mokpo, about 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) south of the airport, but was later transferred to the capital’s Ewha Womans University Seoul Hospital (Yonhap) news agency reported.

“When I woke up, I had been rescued,” hospital director Ju Woong said at a press conference.

Zhu said the survivor, who suffered multiple fractures, was receiving special care due to the risk of sequelae including complete paralysis.

Another survivor, a 25-year-old female flight attendant surnamed Koo, is currently receiving treatment at Asan Medical Center in eastern Seoul, Yonhap added.

She suffered head and ankle injuries but was reported to be in stable condition.

It’s unclear exactly what caused the disaster, but some witnesses said they could see the plane was in trouble before it crashed.

Restaurant owner Im Young-Hak said he initially thought it was a tanker accident.

“I walked outside and saw thick black smoke. Then I heard a huge explosion, not the crash itself. Then there were more explosions – at least seven,” he told Reuters.

“We feel sad when it happens on the other side of the world, but it happened here. It’s distressing.”

Yoo Jae-yong, 41, who lives near the airport, told local media he saw sparks on the right wing shortly before the crash.

Kim Yong-cheol, 70, said the plane initially failed to land and later tried to turn back.

He added that he witnessed “black smoke billowing into the sky” after hearing a “huge explosion,” Yonhap news agency reported.

A firefighter sent to the scene told Reuters he had never seen anything “on this scale”.

The terminal echoed with the cries of family members on Sunday night, while others were angry at the length of time it took to identify the bodies, the BBC’s local correspondent said.

Hundreds of people remained at Muan International Airport waiting for confirmation of the identity of their loved ones.

Some people have provided DNA saliva samples to officials to help identify victims’ bodies, and the government has provided funeral services and temporary housing to families of the deceased.

The next seven days were also declared a period of national mourning.

But for the loved ones of all the victims, many questions remain — especially about the cause of the crash and whether it could have been avoided.

“The water near the airport is not deep,” Quan told Reuters.

“(There are) softer surfaces than this concrete runway. Why can’t pilots land there?”

He said his daughter Mi-sook was coming home soon, so there was no reason to call and leave a final message.

“She was almost home – she thought she was going home”.

Additional reporting by BBC Thai’s Thanyaporn Buathong