Death toll from Sunken ferry rises to 281

Five more bodies were recovered from thesunken ferry Sewol on Wednesday, raising the death toll to 281 and lowering thenumber of those missing to 23, four weeks after the ship sank off South Korea’ssouthwest coast, Yonhap news agency reported today.A joint team of government and civilian divers retrieved the five bodies shortly afterit resumed search operations in the afternoon, officials said.Divers searched the sunken ferry for about an hour overnight, but no bodies werefound then. In the morning, strong currents prevented the team from going underwater, according to officials.Wednesday’s search was expected to focus on a kitchen and cabins on the third deck,other cabins on the fourth deck and the pilothouse on the fifth deck.The 6,825-ton Sewol sank off the southwestern island of Jindo on April 16, carrying476 people on board. Most of those dead or missing are students from a high schoolnear Seoul on a school field trip to the southern resort island of Jeju. The ferry,which departed from Incheon, west of Seoul, sank about two hours away from theresort island.Parts of the hull have begun to collapse, especially in areas where rescuers havecarried out search operations, including a passageway to three compartments at theback of the fourth deck, according to officialsThe government team said it plans to draw up a new search plan after wrapping upcurrent operations on Thursday.“If the vessel needs to be raised, we will do so under a consensus with families (ofthe victims),” an official of the team said during a press briefing, stressing that sucha move would form part of their strategy to find those missing.