http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/23/world/asia/as-ferry-toll-rises-hand-wringing-over-tendency-to-overlook-safety-in-south-korea.html?hpw&rref=world&_r=0

As Navy divers recovered the bodies of dozens of teenagers drowned waiting for a rescue of their doomed ferry, South Korea has begun a national bout of hand-wringing over the country’s tendency to overlook safety precautions in its quest for economic success.

With a mounting list of errors that appeared to have contributed to the disaster, maritime experts, the news media and regular citizens venting their anger on social media have begun to question what they describe as inadequate safety precautions and often lax regulation of businesses.

On Tuesday, an opposition lawmaker released data showing that the ship was carrying three times its recommended maximum cargo, though it remained unclear if that could have helped destabilize it.

In addition, President Park Geun-hye, who has been withering in her criticism of the crew, has also argued that cozy relations between regulators and shippers may have contributed to the catastrophe, one of South Korea’s worst in peacetime. The prime minister cited specific problems that might have been addressed by better regulation, including suspicions that renovations to add more sleeping cabins made the ship top-heavy and more likely to keel over.

The country’s top newspapers reflected the growing sense of anger, and shock, over what they suggested was a lack of proper oversight. “Are we a safe society or a third-rate people?” read one editorial headline in the newspaper Joong-Ang. And the daily newspaper Dong-A ran an editorial titled “Cry Korea,” in which it argued that Ms. Park should live up to her campaign promise to run an “administration of safety.”

For years, South Koreans called their country “a land of disasters” after a lack of regulation or a cavalier attitude toward safety, or both, were at least partly blamed for a string of accidents.

In 1993, an Asiana Airlines jet slammed into a hill not far from the site of the ferry accident, killing 68 people aboard. Later that year, an overloaded ferry sank, killing 292. In 1994, a bridge collapsed in Seoul, killing 32. In 1995, about 100 died in a gas explosion, and roughly 500 in the collapse of a department store in Seoul that was weakened after the owner violated building safety codes by adding a swimming pool at the top. Two years later, a Korean Air jet crashed in Guam, killing 228.

With no large-scale disaster reported since arson caused a subway fire that killed 192 people in 2003, South Korea appeared to have put its curse behind it — and the country appeared to be moving past its culture of “ppali ppali,” or “hurry hurry,” loosely translated as a tendency to justify cutting corners to get work finished quickly.

Now, many Koreans are expressing shame at how far their country still needs to go to address safety concerns, adding to the grief and anger that has gripped the country since the accident last Wednesday.

On Tuesday, anger at the crew’s apparent missteps in the evacuation only grew as investigators said the crew was not even the first to notify the authorities that the ship was in trouble. The first call, they said, came from a high school student who called the police.

“Save us! We’re on a ship and I think it’s sinking,” the student is quoted as saying, according to the South Korean national news agency, Yonhap. The boy is among the missing.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the death toll had risen to 150, but 152 were still missing.

Analysts said the ferry accident appeared to be a reminder that South Korea did not shed its easy acceptance of loose regulatory enforcement even as it became a high-tech economic powerhouse flooding the world markets with Samsung smartphones. The culture of lax enforcement is such a given, experts say, that government officials consider working in public safety a second-rate job.

In South Korea, more than 31,000 people, including 3,000 students, die every year in accidents, accounting for 12.8 percent of the country’s total annual deaths, the highest rate among major developed nations.

Those episodes include everything from car accidents to fires, and it is unclear how much can be attributed to a lack of focus on safety. But there is a general acknowledgment in hypercompetitive South Korea that success is often measured by how quickly and cheaply a job is done, and that spending too much time and resources trying to follow rules is sometimes seen as losing a competitive edge.

“The country has grown so rapidly that a lot of shortcuts have been made, so that it’s waiting for an accident to happen,” said Tom Coyner, a member of the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea and the author of “Doing Business in Korea.”

Kim Chang-je, a professor of navigation science at Korea Maritime and Ocean University, said the complaints appeared to be true of the ferry business. “We have the safety regulations and systems that were similar to global norms,” he said. “But they are not properly enforced.”

He and other experts pointed out a host of issues they said undermined safety on the ferry, including that the crew had several contract workers, who might have been less familiar with the ship than a regular crew.

Investigators have also said the decision by the company that owned the ferry, Cheonghaejin Marine Company, to add more sleeping cabins probably undermined the ship’s ability to regain its balance after tilting.

The Korea Register of Shipping approved the change to the ship’s design after advising Cheonghaejin Marine to carry less cargo and more ballast water to compensate for the loss of stability. But on Tuesday, Kim Young-rok, an opposition lawmaker, said that when the ship left Incheon, it carried 3,608 tons of cargo, three times the recommended maximum. The company’s audit data showed it has depended increasingly upon cargo to compensate for declining passenger revenues.

Prosecutors were investigating whether the ferry carried enough ballast water to accommodate the extra cargo. One of the two first mates arrested on Tuesday told reporters that when he tried to right the ship after tilting, the ballast “didn’t work.”

Prosecutors raided Korea Register’s headquarters on Tuesday and barred the head of Cheonghaejin Marine, as well as the company’s family owners, from leaving the country.

It has also become clear that the captain most likely violated national navigational guidelines when he left the ship in the control of the least experienced ship’s mate through a waterway notorious for its rapid currents. The guidelines stipulate a captain should be in control in busy or dangerous waters.

The ferry also had no extra captain, as ships often do when they are on long overnight voyages so the two can take turns in the bridge, experts said.

Experts say they suspect some of the problems with the ship resulted from lax enforcement of safety standards made possible by ties among the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, the Korea Shipping Association and shipping companies.

The shipping association is a lobby for shipping companies and is financed by them. But it is also charged with inspecting ships for safety measures, such as a proper and balanced stowage of cargo. In addition, many senior officials from the ministry — which is supposed to oversee the association’s enforcement — also join the association after they retire.

“We will never be able to expect safety regulations to be properly enforced until the shipping association becomes independent,” said Jung Yun-chul, another maritime safety expert at Korea Maritime and Ocean University.

In an editorial on Monday, The Chosun Ilbo, the nation’s largest newspaper, summed up the sense that with more care for safety, the calamity might have been avoided.

“In Korea, people who insist on abiding by basic rules are often considered annoying or inflexible, while those who are adept at dodging them are seen as smart,” it said. “But the country is full of such smart people, and the result has been catastrophic.”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2551247&forum_id=2#25442052)

According to the 2013 report, lactose intolerance was the direct cause for 18,553 deaths in South Korea, more than fires, drowning, and suicide combined.

Professor Byung Chung Kim of Seoul University compiled the data over six years and described the dairy-related deaths as a national epidemic that has yet to be acknowledged by the global health community. "Milk too spicy for Korean people," he said. "Milk way too spicy."

http://koreatimes.com/news/korea/health/lactose_deaths.htm

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2551247&forum_id=2#25442216)

that said, korea was poor as fuck 50 years ago. now they're a first world country in most respects. they just need to fix this safety shit.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2551247&forum_id=2#25447865)

reminds me of austin powers steamroller death

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2551247&forum_id=2#25456488)

You were too chickenshit to do your duty and serve in the military.

But we’re suppose to believe you weren’t hiding in your bathtub in fetal position crying like a bitch

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2551247&forum_id=2#48408628)

THE JUST KIDDING KIMSTER NYUUG FUCKED!

THE SUICIDE RATE NYUUG FUCKED!

THE BIRTH RATE NYUUG FUCKED!

FEMCELS NYUUG FUCKED!

3 HOUR JUNTA NYUUG FUCKED!

etc.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2551247&forum_id=2#48408636)

http://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5657774&mc=58&forum_id=2

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2551247&forum_id=2#48680316)

http://www.xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=3830596&forum_id=2#48007528

Date: August 25th, 2024 8:34 PM

Author: Paralegal Muhammad (I fucking hate libs)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2551247&forum_id=2#48836613)

https://www.xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=5733130&mc=25&forum_id=2

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2551247&forum_id=2#48990959)

http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5308417&forum_id=2#48456029

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2551247&forum_id=2#48991039)

Paralegal Muhammad is an angry loser minority like you

LOLLERCAUSTERING @ you

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2551247&forum_id=2#48836882)