Divers feel with their hands for corpses in sunken Korean ferry

[SEOUL] South Korean divers swam though dark, cold waters into a sunken ferry yesterday, feeling for children's bodies with their hands in a maze of cabins, corridors and upturned decks as they searched for hundreds of missing.

The divers, with oxygen and communications lines trailing, can see only a few inches in front of them in the wreckage of the ship that started sinking a week ago after a sharp turn. Most of the victims were high school children, who were told to stay where they were for their own safety and were trapped.

"We are trained for hostile environments, but it's hard to be brave when we meet bodies in dark water," diver Hwang Dae-sik told Reuters, as the funerals of 25 students were held near the capital, Seoul.