외교부 "강경화 장관, 오늘 현장지휘 위해 헝가리行"
For more on the rescue efforts... we now turn to Kim Ji-yeon who is on the line for us from South Korea's Foreign Ministry.
Ji-yeon, what's the latest?
South Korea's Foreign Ministry has made an announcement on the boat disaster just under two hours ago... some six hours after its first briefing on the situation.
First of all, it says Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha will be heading to Hungary today.
Once she arrives, Kang will head the central relief headquarters there to watch over the search and rescue operations, contact the families of the boat passengers... as well as set up an interagency government response team to deal with the situation.
The ministry has already sent a response team comprised of foreign ministry officials and officials from the National Emergency Management Agency... and says it'll soon dispatch another team of officials to Hungary soon.
It says it's making all efforts to get local support from hospitals nearby the site as well as consular support from Hungary... for the prompt and effective search and rescue operations of the South Korean nationals.
The ministry has sent its condolences to the victims and their families... especially since the bad weather conditions are hampering the search and rescue operations there... and that there are so far no confirmed additional survivors other than the seven initially announced.
It says it has yet to identify the survivors, the victims, or the 19 missing people.
Since they were not been able to identify them... it has yet to confirm their nationality.
The ministry says it again confirmed that a total of 35 people were aboard the boat... among them 33 South Korean nationals... mostly tourists were on the boat... the other two were crew members... as you can see the figure's different from the travel agency.
The ministry has confirmed through Hungarian diplomatic office that the passengers were not wearing life vests... we'll find out more about the root of the incident and why they were not instructed to wear the vests.
On the cause of the incident the foreign ministry confirmed once again... the boat departed at 8PM local time... and the incident happened an hour after... when the boat was heading back.
The boat crashed into a cruise ship that was heading for Slovakia... and this is cited as the main cause of the incident.
Currently, the cruise ship in question is being held by Hungarian authorities for investigation.
Among the seven survivors, up until now, the ministry says none of the survivors are currently in critical condition... among the seven... all South Korean nationals, three people have already been released from hospital care... another patient is to be discharged later today... but says it'll keep up with their conditions if they change.
Back to you.
