The entire 15 crew members involved in navigating the doomed South Korean ferry which left 302 people dead or missing after sinking, are now under arrest, it has been revealed.
Two helmsmen and two members of the steering crew are in custody while eleven other crew members, including the captain, have already been detained.
According to prosecutor Yang Jung-jin, they are all accused of negligence and of failing to help passengers as they desperately scrambled for safety as the Sewol sank on April 16.
It comes after the bodies of 48 young girls wearing lifejackets were discovered in a single 30-capacity cabin of the vessel, with government officials forced to admit they sent the wrong bodies home to several grieving families.
Bodies will now be identified through DNA and finger-print testing to ensure the correct victims are sent home for burial.
The bungle heightened public outrage even further, as families wait to confirm the loss of up to 300 mainly young lives in the disaster.
About 20 relatives were reported to have forced their way into the office of Choi Sang-hwan, the Deputy Director of the Korea Coastguard, before dragging him outside.
The South Korean government has conceded that some of the recovered bodies have been misidentified and announced changes to prevent such mistakes in the future.
The captain of the ship initially told passengers to stay in their rooms and took half an hour to issue an evacuation order, by which time the ship was tilting too severely for many people to escape.
Ten days after the sinking, 187 bodies have been recovered and 115 people remain missing feared dead in the dark rooms of the submerged vessel.
Although they have reached two large rooms, one of which may contain the bodies of up to 50 girls, divers have now had to suspend their search for bodies because of dismal weather conditions
Strong wind and rain is expected all weekend at the site of the wreck near Jindo island, along South Korea's southern coast.
'This morning (the divers) did a primary dive, but because of the strong current they were losing their masks, so we have stopped the dive for now,' Captain Kim Jin-hwang, commanding the dive search, said.
'We are expecting the weather to deteriorate in the afternoon,' said Ko Myung-seok, spokesman for the emergency task force, 'but the government will do its best in the rescue and search process.'
The two rooms where searchers hope to find more of the missing are sleeping units designed for dozens of people - one in the stern and one in the bow.
Fifty pupils from Danwon High School in Ansan, on their way to the southern tourist island of Jeju, were booked into one of them.
Students from the city near Seoul make up more than 80 per cent of the 302 people dead or missing.
Large objects toppled when the ferry tipped over and sank are believed to be keeping divers from reaching bodies in at least one of the rooms.Families have been furious with the pace of the recovery effort, along with several while there is growing anger amid accusations of miscommunications and insensitivity by the government.
There have also been claims that the government rejected help it should have accepted, such as a diving bell that civilian volunteer Lee Jong-in of Alpha Sea Rescue first offered several days ago.
The diving bell provides oxygen to divers and allows them to stay underwater longer. The coastguard previously said the current and water depth at the site made the bell unusable, but the government announced yesterday that it would be deployed.
Mr Ko said the bell had not been used yet because the process of setting it up 'didn't go smoothly'.
About 700 divers were working at the site of the April 16 wreck, according to a government-wide emergency task force. That included more 340 volunteer divers visited, but only 16 had gone underwater.
Responding to complaints that the volunteers have been underutilised, the task force's spokesman Koh Myung-seok said some were allowed to dive but 'left after taking photos or have come out of the water in less than 10 minutes.
'As a result, we have decided that civilian divers are slowing down the rescue process' and will not be allowed to participate,' he added.
The government has said the search is becoming more difficult because divers must now break through cabin walls to find more bodies. Many of the bodies already retrieved were in a larger lounge area.
The government has also come under fire for poorly regulating the ferry industry. The Sewol was carrying an estimated 3,608 tons of cargo, said Moon Ki-han, a vice president at Union Transport, which loaded it.
That is more than three times what an inspector who examined the vessel during a redesign said it could safely carry.
It also far exceeds what the captain claimed in paperwork: 150 cars and 657 tons of other cargo, according to the coastguard.
Lee Kyu Yeul, professor emeritus in ship and offshore plant design at Seoul National University's Department of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, said the reported load could have set the ship tipping over with a significant turn.
Tracking data show the ship turned 45 degrees before sinking and crew members have reportedly said that they had tried to make a much less severe turn.
Prosecutor Mr Yang said Friday that the cause of the sinking could be due to excessive veering, improper stowage of cargo, modifications made to the ship and tidal influence.
Meanwhile, US president Barack Obama has expressed his condolences on his visit to South Korea, presenting President Park Geun-hye with an American flag that flew over the White House the day the ferry sank.
His visit was aimed at issues including North Korea, but he noted that his trip came at a time of 'great sorrow'.
He said: 'So many were young students with their entire lives ahead of them.
'I can only imagine what the parents are going through at this point, the incredible heartache.'
Mr Obama said he was donating a magnolia tree from the White House lawn to Danwon School in honour of the lives lost, and as a symbol of friendship between the US and South Korea.
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