오는 29일 다뉴브강 사고 1주년...현지 추모식 진행
It's been a year since cruise boat, the Hableany, capsized on the flooded Danube River killing 26 Koreans and two Hungarian crew members on board.
One year later, along the river banks in Budapest are tributes left by people who still remember the day.
With one person still unaccounted for, an official memorial ceremony is planned tomorrow, on the one year anniversary of the tragic incident.
Kim Sung min reports.
Dolls, flowers and jars with pebbles.
People have placed these on the banks of the river to remember the precious souls that were lost a year ago here on the Danube River in Hungary.
On May 29th, 2019, the Hableany cruise boat, with 35 people on board, capsized near the Margit Bridge in Budapest.
26 South Korean tourists and two Hungarian crew members died in the incident.
The local diving supervisor, who worked to recover the bodies, still clearly recalls the tragedy.
"The high water level made it very difficult to dive. The water was flowing at four meters per second, which is equivalent to standing upright in hurricane winds of 200 kilometers per hour. So the only way for the diver to get through was to take cover behind the wreck."
Even though they had almost no vision under water and the strong current hampered the operation, the recovery team managed to find 27 dead bodies with one Korean national still missing.
For the following two months, Korean-Hungarian joint teams worked day and night... and Hungary is still running regular patrols to look for the missing person.
A memorial ceremony to commemorate the one year anniversary of the accident will be held on May 29th at the dock near Margit Bridge.
According to the Korean Embassy in Hungary on Tuesday local time, the Korean Ambassador, Hungarian Foreign Minister and Mayor of Budapest will attend the ceremony.
A monument funded by the local government will also be erected by end of this year.
Kim Sung-min, Arirang News
