Confirmed death toll in S. Korea ferry disaster passes 100—coastguard

South Korean rescue team members work to rescue passengers believed to have been trapped in the sunken ferry Sewol near the buoys which were installed to mark the vessel in the water off the southern coast near Jindo, South Korea, Monday, April 21, 2014. AP Photo

JINDO— The confirmed death toll in South Korea’s ferry disaster crossed 100 on Tuesday, but almost twice that number remained unaccounted for nearly a week into the rescue and recovery effort.

The official toll provided by the coastguard stood at 104, with 198 still missing. The 6,825-tonne Sewol was carrying 476 people—most of them schoolchildren—when it capsized and sank last Wednesday.

Some 174 people, including the captain and most of his crew, were rescued.

The expected final death toll of around 300 would make this one of South Korea’s worst peacetime disasters.

A Seoul department store collapsed in 1995, killing more than 500 people, while nearly 300 people died when a ferry capsized off the west coast in 1993.