‘Shouldn’t we try and get out?’

The search for nearly 300 people missing after a South Korean ferry capsized has slipped into a second day.

AS the frantic hunt for survivors of South Korea's ferry disaster continues, passengers have claimed they were denied a proper chance to escape.

National shock at the incident that may have claimed the lives of hundreds of South Korean schoolchildren was mixed with fury today, as more passengers gave eyewitness accounts of what happened on board before the vessel began to sink.

Survivors highlighted the fact that passengers were repeatedly told to stay in their seats or cabins when the ferry first ran into trouble on Wednesday morning.

Those who obeyed found their possible escape route severely compromised after the vessel suddenly listed sharply to the port side, triggering total panic.

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In total shock ... a relative weeps as she waits for missing passengers of a sunken ferry at Jindo port. Picture: Chung Sung-Jun. Source: Getty Images

One survivor named Kim Sung-Mook said he had struggled to rescue around 30 high school students unable to escape from a large, open hall on the fourth level of the ship.

"I couldn't even get into the hall because the whole thing was leaning over so badly," Kim said.

"The ship was going underwater and there was nothing for them to hold on to with their hands. They couldn't crawl up the floor, because it was wet and at such a sharp angle," he said.

More pictures of the sinking ferry

Using a fire hose he managed to pull a few to safety, "but there were so many of them ... I couldn't help them all." One student who was rescued said most passengers had remained in their seat for "30 to 40 minutes" after the ferry first foundered, in line with instructions they received from crew members and over the internal tannoy system.

"The message was repeated again and again: 'Stay put. Don't move'," said another survivor Huh Young-Ki.

The rescue mission ... passengers rescued by coast guard members from the Sewol ferry sinking off the coast of Jindo Island. Picture: The Republic of Korea Coast Guard Source: Getty Images

"We we're asking ourselves: 'Shouldn't we move? Shouldn't we try and get out?' But the announcement was saying help would be there in 10 minutes," Huh told the News Y television channel.

Discipline is strict in the South Korean education system and authority rarely flouted, leaving observers to conclude that most of the 375 high school students on the ferry, in their late teens, would have probably obeyed any official commands without question.

"If only we had been told to get out earlier, then more of us would have been able to jump into the sea," one student who managed to escape told the MBC TV channel.

Scrambling to find more alive ... South Korean Coast Guard and rescue teams search as bad weather hampers their attempts. Picture: Chung Sung-Jun. Source: Getty Images

"But most people just stayed put as they were told," she added. Once the 6,825-tonne vessel Sewol had begun to list, it soon ended up at a 90 degree angle to the water, before inverting completely and sinking with only a small section of the keel showing above water.

With only 179 rescued so far, the fear is that most of the 287 still unaccounted for were trapped inside the ship as it submerged.

The suggestion that many more should have been able to escape has added to the anguish of the relatives of the missing, and fuelled public anger in a country unused to a disaster of this scale, especially involving its efficient, modern transport infrastructure.

Most South Koreans believe they have left the sort of accidents that regularly blight developing countries behind.

Searching for answers ... South Korean rescuers on board the capsized ferry at sea some 20 kilometres off the island of Byungpoong in Jindo. Picture: Yonhap Source: AFP

With the exception of a subway station fire in 2003 that claimed 192 lives, there have been no large-scale disasters in the past nearly two decades.

A Seoul department store collapsed in 1995, killing more than 500 people, while nearly 300 people died when a ferry capsized off the west coast in 1993.

- 'One man was screaming for help' —

The captain of the Sewol, Lee Joon-Seok, was among those who escaped the ferry before it sank and was being questioned by investigators today.

Surrounded by TV cameras and reporters as he waited in the coastguard's southern headquarters in Mokpo, Lee pulled a hood over his head and face, and mumbled incoherently in response to persistent questions to explain what happened.

He insisted it had not run aground.

"It didn't hit any rocks," the 60-year-old told the Dong-A Ilbo newspaper.

"The ship just sank suddenly. I don't know a clear reason," he said.

The scene of the incident ... South Korean coast guard officers try to rescue passengers from ferry Sewol in the water off the southern coast near Jindo, Picture: Hyung Min-woo, Yonhap Source: AP

One 61-year-old woman escaped after ignoring the advice to stay in her cabin which she said was still being relayed as it filled with water.

"I swam for a while and then managed to crawl to an upper deck and then to a window where other people were clinging on," she told reporters in a hospital where she was recovering.

"One man was slamming on the window screaming for help, and then a rescue boat came up and they smashed the window in and pulled us out," she said.

Jin Kyo-Joong, the former chief of the South Korean Navy's ship salvage unit, said there were emergency situations where keeping passengers from moving was crucial.

"But if the ship is listing so dramatically to the point where people can't even move around, then ordering them to stay put is obviously the wrong order," Jin told the YTN television channel.

Not giving up ... South Korean Navy searching for missing passengers at the site of the sunken ferry off the coast of Jindo Island. Picture: Chung Sung-Jun. Source: Getty Images

Meanwhile, naval and coastguard vessels used floodlights and flares to keep the search operation going through the night, but strong currents and low visibility hampered diving teams' efforts to access the vessel in the hope of finding survivors trapped in air pockets.

Only two out of 500 divers are now doing rescue effort because of the bad weather.

"Honestly, I think the chances of finding anyone alive are close to zero," a coastguard official told an AFP journalist on one of the boats at the capsize site.

Two salvage cranes are on their way to the scene to try to raise the capsized vessel, government minister Kang Byung-kyu has said.

However, the first is not due to arrive until Friday morning.

US warship the USS Bonhomme Richard is on standby in the area.

Commanding officer Capt Joey Tynch told the BBC that poor visibility was hampering the rescue effort. "We found ourselves in challenging weather conditions today," he said.

"Very low cloud ceilings and reduced visibility and rain and we're working a search area around the site in close co-ordination with the South Korean on-scene commander."

In limbo ... one relative talks on the phone as he waits for missing passengers of a sunken ferry at Jindo port. Picture: Chung Sung-Jun. Source: Getty Images

The Sewol, which travels twice a week between Incheon and Jeju, is a 146-meter vessel that can hold more than 900 people.

It set sail on Tuesday from Incheon, in north-western South Korea, on an overnight, 14-hour journey to the tourist island of Jeju.

About 9am on Wednesday, when it was three hours from Jeju, the ferry sent a distress call after it began listing to one side, according to the Ministry of Security and Public Administration.

TV stations broadcast live pictures yesterday of the listing Sewol as passengers clambered over the side, jumped into the sea or were hoisted up by helicopters.

At least 87 vessels and 18 aircraft swarmed around the stricken ferry.

Of the 475 people aboard, 287 are still missing — many of them high school students on a class trip. Nine were confirmed dead and 55 were injured.

Many expect that number will rise sharply because the missing have now spent more than a day either trapped in the ferry or in the cold seawater.

The last major ferry disaster in South Korea was in 1993, when 292 people were killed.

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