What could a person do?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/south-korean-ferry-sinking-leaves-7-dead-almost-300-missing-1.2611695

http://abcnews.go.com/International/stud...ory?id=23345774

Stay alert, know where the life preservers and life boats are, stay near the life boats, and know how to swim. Pay attention to the emergency drills.

This is an absolutely terrible tragedy. Telling the young victims to stay in place rather than announcing an evacuation to muster points to abandon ship has caused many many unnecessary deaths as the ship begins to seriously list. Always pre-empt the ship list if possible to make your way to the high side. Anything > 20 degrees and your pretty much snookered making your way to the high side to evacuate to get into the water or deploy the lifeboats. The greater the list angle the higher probability of rapid capsize.

Add to the mess, most of these passengers are teenagers, not adults.

And Korea is a much more hierarchical society where you do what you're told to do from someone higher up, like their teachers or the captain of the ship. To think, "To heck with the captain's order..." is much more difficult to do in this kind of climate.

in 71 I was stationed in Japan, and rode the ferry into Fukuoka pretty much every break... there were three levels of passengers, and the cheapest warmest ride was deep in the hull, the most expensive on deck... even in the coldest weather, and it gets damn cold in that part of the world off the Sea of Japan, I rode on deck...

The ability to swim proficiently was also regarded by my primary and secondary school as being very important. My Secondary school also had a great swimming coach and we were pretty proficient at swimming.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgFTfLp24qo

Some great memories for me here.

Does anyone know if in South Korea, the emphasis on Academic learning takes precedence over other skills such as swimminig, which may save your life one day?

Waterproof flashlight, boat shoes (stick to the deck at almost any angle. Wet or dry), knowing when to run. From what I've heard of the survivors accounts, they stayed put until the compartments they were in started flooding.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/16/world/asia/survivors-korea-ferry/index.html?hpt=bosread

The emergency drill instructions were to stay in place. That came from the captain, who got out with some crew members. There have been enough of these ship tragedies to make me regard emergency instructions as optional.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/17/south-korea-disaster-captain-crew-abandoning-passengers

Along with being a strong swimmer, I'd say practicing swimming underwater is also a good skill to have. If nothing else, the ability helps you not to freak out if you suddenly find yourself 20 feet underwater for example.

By the way, if a captain is unwilling to stay with the ship, then he should not be a captain. "Stay with the ship" is a rule that makes all other rules work properly. For example, if the captain knows he must stay with the ship, then the captain will not take any unnecessary chances with anything out there. Is there a psychological test to see if a captain has this ability?

Did two tours in Korea. Came into contact with the KATUSA and the regular army troops.

The KATUSA were college age kids who had parents who could afford to pay the kid's way into the program. Sorry physically, good academically, spoke passable English. They augment the US troops in most but not all jobs. I suspect the more mom and dad paid, the better the job junior got.

The Korean regular army is tougher than woodpecker lips. I think they teach all the troops to swim iirc. And when I was there (90s) service was pretty much mandatory.

As to the teen set, no clue.

This was a travesty as to the captain's and crews conduct. Should be held criminally and civilly liable. And iirc the weather there is still sorta cold and nasty. Spring hits end of April/early Mayish.

If the captains orders life vests on, I should also get up to the deck regardless of any other instructions.