Anger boils over in search for Korea ferry missing

Emotions boiled over today in the frantic search for 300 people -- mostly schoolchildren -- missing from a capsized South Korean ferry, with angry parents confronting President Park Geun-Hye as prospects dwindled of finding survivors.
Worsening weather fuelled the sombre mood, with persistent rain and choppy seas hindering dive teams already struggling with low visibility and strong currents.
Fourteen people were confirmed dead, but with every hour that passed fears mounted for the 282 still unaccounted for after the multi-deck vessel with 475 on board suddenly listed, capsized and then sank within the space of 90 minutes yesterday morning.
"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 site.

The coastguard said more than 500 divers, 169 vessels and 29 aircraft were now involved in the rescue operation.
But distraught relatives gathered in a gymnasium on nearby Jindo island insisted more should be done, and vented their frustration when Park came to inspect the rescue effort.

"What are you doing when people are dying? Time is running out!" one woman screamed as Park tried to address the volatile crowd with her security detail standing by nervously.
A total of 375 high school students were on board, on their way with teachers to the popular island resort of Jeju.
When Prime Minister Chung Hong-Won visited the gymnasium earlier in the day, he was jostled and shouted at, and water bottles were thrown.

"Don't run away, Mr Prime Minister!" one mother said, blocking Chung as he tried to leave. "Please tell us what you're planning to do."
The coastguard said 179 people had been rescued.
The tragedy has stunned a country whose rapid modernisation was thought to have consigned such large-scale accidents to the past.
If the missing are confirmed dead it would become one of South Korea's worst peacetime disasters -- all the more traumatic for the number of children involved.
It was still unclear what caused the 6,825-tonne Sewol to sink. Numerous passengers spoke of a loud thud and the vessel coming to an abrupt, shuddering halt -- suggesting it had run aground or hit a submerged object.

But the captain, Lee Joon-Seok, who survived and was being questioned by investigators, insisted it had not hit rocks.