South Korea Prepares To Move Sunken Sewol Ferry To Port

JINDO, South Korea, , (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 24th Mar, 2017 ) - Salvage operators were preparing to move South Korea's sunken Sewol ferry on to another vessel to transfer it to port Friday, nearly three years after it went down with the loss of more than 300 lives.

The top of the wreck had been raised to 13 metres above sea-level by late morning, the maritime ministry said in a statement, just high enough to fit it onto a semi-submersible standing by to take it to Mokpo on the mainland.

The rusted, silted hull stood high out of the water between two giant salvage barges, still on its side as it lay on the sea bed but with both the white superstructure and the blue bulbous bow exposed.

"Today is the last day of the neap tide and we must finish loading the Sewol to the submersible," Lee Cheol-jo, a ministry official in charge of the operation told reporters, referring to when tides are at their weakest.