SEOUL, July 19 (Xinhua) -- A South Korean court ordered the government and the passenger ship operator Thursday to compensate the bereaved families of victims to the Sewol ferry sinking disaster, acknowledging the responsibility of the government for the first time.
The Seoul Central District Court ruled that 200 million won (177,000 U.S. dollars) should be paid to each deceased passenger, 40 million won (35,000 U.S. dollars) to each parent of deceased students, and 5 million won (4,400 U.S. dollars) to 20 million won (17,700 U.S. dollars) to each sibling and grandparent of the victims.
The compensation totaled 72.3 billion won (63.9 million U.S. dollars). In September 2015, a combined 355 bereaved family members of 118 victims filed a suit against the government for its failure of safety supervision and its initial bungling of rescue operation.
The bereaved families also sued the Cheonghaejin Marine, the sunken ship's operator, for its overloading of freight and an excessive extension work of the passenger ship.
On April 16, 2014, the passenger ferry Sewol sank off the country's southwest coast, killing 304 passengers, mostly high school students on the way to the southern resort island of Jeju for a school trip.
The government under then President Park Geun-hye paid compensations to the bereaved families, but the plaintiffs refused to be awarded the compensations to allow the court to rule on a legal responsibility of the government.
President Park was impeached and ousted out of her presidency for a corruption scandal. The ferry sinking disaster also contributed to her impeachment as then presidential secretaries hid Park's whereabouts at the critical time of the rescue operations, stoking public outrage.
The court said the Cheonghaejin Marine allowed the Sewol ferry to sail with overloading and freight loosely fixed, while the captain and crewmen escaped after ordering passengers to stay put inside the sinking vessel.
It noted that coast guard rescuers bungled their initial operation as they failed to encourage passengers to escape from the sinking vessel first.
