Stillness and shock after South Korea's plane tragedy - but families' frustration is boiling over

3 months ago 199

At the clang tract astatine Muan Airport, you get a truly beardown consciousness of conscionable however abrupt and catastrophic it each was.

There is an eerie quiescent arsenic the service sifts done the wreckage, picking up tiny bits of debris and placing them successful tiny integrative bags.

Tens of metres from the level you tin spot countless rider seats ripped isolated and breached bits of craft instrumentality everywhere.

Only the process of the level is disposable - astir of it is destroyed. Engulfed by flames, it's wide passengers had adjacent to nary accidental of surviving this horrific disaster.

Live updates: South Korea level crash

 AP

Image: South Korean soldiers enactment adjacent the wreckage. Pic: AP

 Reuters/Kim Hong-Ji

Image: The wreckage of the Jeju Air aircraft. Pic: Reuters

In the airport, a morgue has been established, and families are gathered - each successful grief, but immoderate inactive waiting for their loved ones to beryllium officially identified.

They are sat successful mournful soundlessness - the arrivals committee present carrying the names of those connected board.

Sheltered tents person been erected to springiness families privacy. There's a stillness and daze that hangs successful the air.

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 AP/Ahn Young-joon

Image: Temporary shelters acceptable up astatine the airdrome for mourners. Pic: AP

Muan International Airport successful  Muan, South Korea. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Image: Mourners astatine the airport. Pic: AP

Many of those connected committee were returning from a Christmas vacation to Thailand. Now the loved ones they've near down are gathering astatine a memorial altar - trying to process the aftermath of South Korea's worst-ever aviation disaster.

There is simply a cruel choreography to the aftermath of the nationalist calamity playing retired connected an acute and horrifying level for the families of the dead.

Relatives look exhausted. Some person slept connected the terminal floor, desperately waiting for authoritative confirmation.

Then, abruptly a antheral comes to the microphone and starts to work retired a database of 8 individuals and asks their families to spell to gross one.

A pistillate   prays astatine  a memorial altar for the victims of the Jeju Air crash. REUTERS/Kim Hong-ji

Image: A pistillate prays astatine a memorial altar for the victims. Pic: Reuters

Buddhists monks commune  for the victims. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Image: Buddhists monks commune for the victims. Pic: AP

Relatives rapidly huddle unneurotic and unreserved extracurricular to a autobus that's waiting to instrumentality them to the mortuary.

It is simply a gruesome process up for them. Many of the bodies are successful a precise mediocre condition. They tin lone beryllium identified done DNA investigating and fingerprints.

As they hold to committee the bus, a radical of women starts to weep. It is an outpouring of grief successful a nine that prioritises privacy. Most are simply excessively upset to talk.

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What we cognize astir the level clang - and what went wrong

But astatine a briefing, vexation is boiling over. Some relatives are shouting astatine officials, aggravated they've inactive not been capable to spot their loved ones' bodies.

The authoritative tells them they are sorting done much than 600 assemblage parts and are trying hard to debar immoderate mistakes. It is an uncomfortable information that's hard for galore to hear.

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