“Honestly, I cannot accept what has happened and that they died. I feel like I am dreaming,” he said, adding that he was focusing on caring for his grieving family members.
“My turn to allow the feelings of profound loss to get to me is only when I am alone at night,” he said. “I might be able to accept the reality when I see their photos during the funeral procession. How can you accept that it was only a week ago that they left you saying they are going on a nice trip but that they will never return home,” he added.
In the makeshift tent community, the sound of snores is clearly audible in the evenings. Others sleep where they can, on chairs or the ground.
During the day, children play with their toys and teenagers huddle together on their cellphones. Grief and exhaustion show plainly on their faces.
Lawyers are also on site offering their legal advice to families free of charge and officials have set up a briefing area where they provide updates to the families.
At the nearby Muan Sports Park, a public memorial has been set up for people to pay their respects to the victims. Volunteers handed a white Chrysanthemum and white gloves to each person walking into the gymnasium where an altar displaying the names of every identified victim was surrounded by ornate wreaths.
Kim Yung-Rok, the governor of Jeollanamdo Province where Muan is based, solemnly greeted the visitors.
“I cried when I met with the bereaved families,” he said, “I realized that there were no words to console the depth of their despair.”
He added that the crash had come as a “terrific shock” to both the people of Muan and the entire country.
“Most of the passengers were not on business trips but family trips and so it hurts even more. People lost not only one but two, three, four or even more than five family members in this one plane accident,” he said.
U.S. investigators
Back at the airport, the search continues with American investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board joining their South Korean counterparts Tuesday.
Wearing full hazmat suits in the freezing cold temperatures, they search through the charred, blacked wreckage, aided by a large crane.
The American team arrived at the scene the day after acting South Korean President Choi Sang-mok ordered an emergency safety inspection of the country’s entire airline operation. The country’s National Police Agency also said it was making all-out efforts to speed identification of the bodies, by allocating more personnel and equipment such as rapid DNA analyzers.
There is still no definitive answer on what exactly caused the crash, but two black boxes retrieved from the aircraft — the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder — were transferred to a test center Monday morning.
Yu Kyung-soo, director of aviation safety policy at South Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, or MOLIT, said in a briefing Monday that the pilot issued a “bird strike” warning, used to alert a collision between at least one bird and an aircraft, shortly before the crash.
The pilot then declared “mayday,” Yu said.
