Body of Korean boy who raised ferry alarm believed found

(Reuters) - A South Korean boy whose shaking voice first raised the alarm that an overloaded ferry with hundreds of children on board was sinking has been found drowned in the underwater wreckage of the ship, his parents believe, the coastguard said on Thursday.

The parents had seen his body and clothes and concluded he was their son, but he has not been formally identified with a DNA test.

More than 300 people, most of them students and teachers from the Danwon High School, are dead or missing presumed dead in the April 16 disaster.

The Sewol, weighing almost 7,000 tons, sank on a routine trip from the port of Incheon, near Seoul, to the southern holiday island of Jeju. Investigations are focused on human error and mechanical failure.

Of the 476 passengers and crew on board, 339 were children and teachers from the school in Ansan, a gritty suburb on the outskirts of Seoul, who were on an outing to Jeju.

As the ferry began sinking, the crew told the children to stay in their cabins.

Most of those who obeyed died. Many of those who flouted or did not hear the instructions and went out on deck were rescued.

But only 174 people were saved and the remainder are presumed to have drowned.

Classes at the school resumed on Thursday with banks of floral tributes surrounding photos of each of the victims, dressed in their school uniforms. Almost 250 teenagers and teachers at the school have died or are presumed dead.

Fellow students filed past, offering white chrysanthemums in somber tributes.

In the classrooms of the missing, friends posted messages on desks, blackboards and windows, in the days after disaster struck, asking for the safe return of their friends.

"If I see you again, I'll tell you I love you, because I haven't said it to you enough," read one.

The school provided therapy sessions for the children as they returned.

The first distress call from the sinking vessel was made by a boy with a shaking voice, three minutes after the vessel made its fateful last turn, a fire service officer told Reuters.

"SAVE US"

The boy called the emergency 119 number which put him through to the fire service, which in turn forwarded him to the coastguard two minutes later. That was followed by about 20 other calls from children on board the ship to the emergency number.

"Save us! We're on a ship and I think it's sinking," Yonhap news agency quoted the boy as saying.

The fire service official asked him to switch the phone to the captain, media said, and the boy replied: "Do you mean teacher?"

The pronunciation of the words for "captain" and "teacher" is similar in Korean. Read more - Body of Korean boy who raised ferry alarm believed found