Two ferry victims had tied jacket cords together

SEOUL - A boy and girl trapped in a sinking South Korean ferry with hundreds of other high school students tied their life jacket cords together, a diver who recovered their bodies said, presumably so they wouldn't float apart.

The diver had to separate the two because he could not carry two bodies to the surface at the same time.

"I started to cry thinking that they didn't want to leave each other," he told the Kyunghyang Shinmun newspaper on the island of Jindo on Thursday, near where the overloaded ferry went down last week.

The parents of the boy whose shaking voice first raised the alarm that an overloaded ferry was sinking believe his body has also been found, the coast guard said. They based their conclusion on a body and clothes they saw, but there has not been a formal identification.

More than 300 people, most of them students and teachers from the Danwon High School, are dead or missing and presumed dead after the April 16 disaster.

On Thursday, relatives of some of the more than 120 people still missing surrounded three officials, preventing them from leaving the Jindo area where families have been waiting for word of their loved ones.

The relatives descended on Oceans and Fisheries Minister Lee Ju-young, coast guard chief Kim Seok-kyun, and deputy chief Choi Sang-hwan. The men sat on the ground under a tent where details about the recovered dead - now numbering 175 - are posted.

Some of the family members shouted at the officials, accusing them of lying about the operation, demanding that the search continue through the night, and asking why hundreds of civilian divers have not been allowed to join coast guard and navy personnel in searching for bodies. Some of the relatives cried through the tense scene.

About 700 divers are working at the site, said Koh Myung-seok, spokesman for the government emergency task force. He said more than 340 volunteer divers have visited, but they "are slowing down the rescue process" and will not be allowed to participate.

Eleven crew members, including the captain, have been arrested on suspicion of negligence and abandoning people in need. Arrest warrants were issued against four more Thursday.