News of the ferry disaster prompted anxious families of children who had been on board to gather at the Danwon High School in a Seoul suburb.<br /><br />As they waited for news, a fleet of buses carrying many relatives left for the port of Jindo 350 kilometres south of the capital, where the rescued are being brought ashore.<br /><br />“I felt like my heart stopped (when I heard). I can’t describe the feeling with words. I was way too shocked. I can’t even talk about it,” said Jung Kyeong-Mi, 43, the mother of 18-year-old student Kim Soo-Bin. <br /><br />Park Sung-Ho, 50, is the father of another 18-year-old student, Park Eun-Ho: “I can’t even describe how I feel now. I was really nervous. Even specially trained soldiers will have a hard time if they get stranded at sea. What a shock it must be to those kids… I’m sure it must felt like the sky was falling in. It’s even worse for the parents,” he said. <br /><br />Some were distressed, some angry at the lack of news.<br /><br />Earlier an official from the school had said all 338 students and teachers had been rescued. Now, cruelly, this looks like it was a massively over-optimistic assessment.
