`Koreans should adhere more to rules to avoid second Sewol’

Expatriates offered some tough advice for Koreans following the sinking of the ferry Sewol.

“I’m saddened by the loss of life from the ferry accident. I believe it stemmed largely from the weakness of safety rules, standards, safety training and the like,” said Joel Levin, an American living in Seoul.

“I see mothers riding in the front seats of cars with a baby on their lap — and no baby seat in sight. How can such obviously risky behavior be so common in such an advanced society?” he asked.

“It’s not usually fun or exciting, but rather hidden beneath the surface. But exactly when it’s boring and quiet, it means it’s working; that people are not being hurt or killed,” he said.

The ferry tragedy came just two months after the collapse of an auditorium in a resort in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, which killed 10 people, mostly collegians.

“A common excuse for shoddy construction and such corrupt practices is that Korea is developing,” said Dylan Stent, a master’s candidate at the Graduate School of International Studies of Yonsei University, from New Zealand.

Michael Breen, CEO of the public-relations agency Insight Communications and a former journalist, said the emergency response reflects a communication problem in Korea.

“The problem is that experienced people should be the ones leading the operation. And they should be the ones communicating with the media and the parents,” said Breen. “Daily briefing should come from a confident leader of the rescue operation who knows what he’s talking about.”

“It’s almost like a mob,” he said about cameras being allowed to take pictures of ferry Captain Lee Joon-seok, who left the ship without leading the evacuation of passengers.

Clement Touzard, an employee at SDV, a French logistic company in Osan, said the private sector should do better in meeting basic safety requirements imposed by authorities.

“When inspectors come, workers hurriedly do things for show, and after they leave everything goes back to how it used to be. They don’t care anymore,” he said.

Richard Pennington from the United States, director of the Committee to Bring Jikji Back to Korea, said it’s time to focus on the rescue efforts. Jikji is a Buddhist document printed in 1377 during the Goyreo era, which is the world’s oldest existing book that was printed with movable metal type.

There was consensus about the condemnation of the captain.

“The captain escaping the ferry before the passengers was an act of immense cowardice. It is a huge neglect of moral and professional responsibility,” said David Emmanuel Clej, an English teacher at Chungdahm Language School, from England.

“In the capsizing of the passenger liner Titanic more than 100 years ago, with no helicopters and not enough lifeboats in the middle of the Atlantic, they saved more than 700 lives out of some 2,200 passengers. Although we don’t yet know the exact death toll, the ferry Sewol disaster is worse than the Titanic.”

Retired U.S. Navy officer Paul Anglade echoed Clej’s view. “This is against every rule of maritime laws and traditions. How could he? The captain should be the last one to leave any ship in distress,” he said.

“I feel terrible knowing that watertight integrity was most likely not taken into consideration when the ferry was retrofitted,” he said, citing a fault in the vessel. “There should have been watertight bulkheads installed every few meters. That way, the ship would have most likely remained afloat regardless of where the hull penetration occurred.”

James Thomas Webb, 26, an English teacher at Uncle Sam’s School and a former journalist from the United States, said that raising situational awareness would help.

“I was moving in an underground market in Incheon with my broken leg and was bumped into by people fixated on various activities without looking ahead of them. Nobody seemed to care or watch out for me,” he said. By Kim Se-jeong The korea times

Jun Ji-hye, Nam Hyun-woo and Joel Lee contributed to this article. малоизвестные займы онлайн на карту без отказа