Salvage operators began raising South Korea’s sunken Sewol ferry on Wednesday, officials said, nearly three years after the disaster killed more than 300 people and dealt a crippling blow to now-ousted president Park Geun-Hye.

Emotional parents of victims — the vast majority of the dead in the country’s worst-ever maritime tragedy were schoolchildren — urged people to pray for a successful recovery.

The vessel was lying more than 130 feet below the waves off south-western South Korea and the operation, originally scheduled for last year, had been pushed back several times because of adverse weather. It is thought that nine bodies still unaccounted for may be trapped inside the sunken ship, and raising the ferry intact has been a key demand of the victims’ families.

“I am a mother who just really misses her daughter. Please pray for us so we can go home with Eun-Hwa,” said Lee Keum-Hui, one of a handful of relatives who have been living in makeshift homes at Paengmok, the closest port to the wreck, since the accident. Other bereaved family members have been maintaining a vigil at a camp on a hilltop on Donggeochado, the nearest island to the site, just 1.5kms away.

Two enormous barges were positioned on either side of the 6,825-tonne ship and air bags inserted for the salvage effort, which is being led by a Chinese consortium. Beams were installed by digging through the seabed underneath the wreck, which was lying on its side, and cables attached to bring it painstakingly towards the surface. The operation is expected to take three days.

The disaster and its aftermath gripped South Korea and overshadowed the presidency of Park, who stayed at her residence for seven hours in the crucial initial phase of the sinking. Negligence over the sinking was one of the grounds for which parliament impeached Park in December, although the constitutional court ruled that it was not an impeachable offence. Investigations into the disaster, in which 304 people died, concluded it was largely man-made — the cumulative result of an illegal redesign, an overloaded cargo bay, inexperienced crew and a questionable relationship between the ship operators and state regulators. Even though the vessel took around three hours to sink, those on board were never ordered to evacuate, while the crew escaped to safety. Captain Lee Jun-Seok was sentenced to life in prison for “murder through willful negligence” and 14 other crew members given terms ranging from two to 12 years.

Published in Dawn, March 23rd, 2017