BEIJING — A South Korean ferry was sailing along a different route to make up for lost time due to heavy fog when passengers heard a bang and the vessel fell to one side, trapping nearly 300 passengers, mostly students on their way to a tourist island.
The Korean television station Arirang said the ferry Sewol had set off later than expected for Jeju Island, so the captain changed the ship's route to make port on time, sailing through an area known to have rocky shoals.
Though the cause of the disaster had not been determined officially, rescued passengers said they heard a loud noise and then people and furniture began sliding to one side.
"There was a bang, and then the ship suddenly tilted over," said a 57-year-old survivor, identified only by the surname Yoo, Yonhap news agency reported.
Arirang interviewed survivors cloaked in blankets, who said the sea was calm before the disaster.
"Then all of a sudden, the ship felt like it flipped on its side violently," an elderly man lying on a rescue ship told the station. "People were cornered and they couldn't get out of their cabins because they couldn't open the doors."
A male student said he was yelling for 40 minutes before he was rescued.
"Things were falling and people were sliding down the ship," he said.
Divers searched three compartments of the ferry, which sank after floating for several hours on its side, but as of early Thursday they had found no sign of the 284 people who had yet to be accounted for.
About 160 divers searched throughout the night in the hope that passengers may have found pockets of air for breathing inside the sunken ship. Rescuers plucked dazed students, many wearing life jackets, out of the water or off the vessel.
The ferry set off from Incheon, a city in South Korea's northwest, on Tuesday night for a 14-hour journey to Jeju with 462 people aboard, mostly students from a high school in Ansan, just south of Seoul. The 480-foot-long ship was authorized to carry more than 900 people and 180 vehicles, according to Korea news media reports.
Three hours from the island at about 9 a.m. Wednesday, the ship sent a distress call, according to the Ministry of Security and Public Administration, and within the hour the vessel was surrounded by ships and helicopters. Yonhap said 175 people had been pulled off the ship by helicopters or fished out of the waters before the ship turned belly up and sank.
Anxious relatives waited at Jindo Port, on the island closest to the sunken ferry, where survivors were brought. Some of those who managed to escape the ship told Korean media that the captain had told passengers to remain where they were, which may have reduced their chances of survival, they said.
"I ran into my room, after I heard the announcement. But things didn't seem right," a female student who jumped into the water told a local TV station, the Korea Timesnewspaper reported.
Passengers on the left side of the ferry who followed the captain's instructions may have been trapped in the sinking ship as it listed to the left, said the paper, while those on the right could jump into the frigid sea.
Six people had been confirmed dead as of early Thursday.
Ships, airplanes and helicopters buzzed around the hull in a search for survivors in the swift-moving, muddy water 12 miles off the island of Byeongpoong. The U.S. Navy ship Bonhomme Richard, which was in the area on routine patrol, joined the rescue efforts.
One student, Lim Hyung-min, told broadcaster YTN after being rescued that he and other students jumped into the ocean wearing life jackets and then swam to a nearby rescue boat.
"As the ferry was shaking and tilting, we all tripped and bumped into each another," Lim said, adding that some people were bleeding. Once he jumped, the ocean "was so cold. ... I was hurrying, thinking that I wanted to live."
At Ansan Danwon High School, students were sent home and parents gathered for news about the ferry. Park Ji-hee, a first-year student, said she saw about a dozen parents crying at the school entrance.Parents clung to cellphones awaiting calls from their children.
Contributing: Doug Stanglin in McLean, Va.
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