The legacy of the sinking of the Sewol

Jeju, South Korea

AT THE windy port here on South Korea's most famous resort island, stevedores prepared a ferry for its four-and-a-half-hour journey to Mokpo in the country's southwest, chains clanking as they lashed trucks to the damp cargo deck. As truck drivers hauling cows, radishes and aluminium window frames inched their way to the front of the line, they did something they had never done before last year: they handed in paperwork certifying the weight of their cargo.

That simple safety step - an attempt to avoid dangerous overloading - is one of a host of regulatory changes made since the sinking of the Sewol ferry, one of South Korea's most traumatic peacetime disasters.