Part of the sunken Sewol ferry has surfaced above water, with two salvage barges lifting the vessel Thursday, almost three years after it sank in waters off Jindo, South Jeolla Province.

While some of the bereaved families watched from boats near the site, salvage operators worked overnight to lift the 145-meter long, 6,825-ton ferry which had been lying at a depth of 44 meters after it sank on April 16, 2014. Among its 476 passengers, 304, mostly high school students, lost their lives. Nine are still unaccounted for.

At around 3:45 a.m., the right side of the ferry’s structure was seen above water between the two salvage barges, the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries said.

As of 6 p.m., Thursday, about 8.5 meters of the central part of the hull had surfaced above the water.

“Once the hull of the ship is lifted 13 meters above the surface, which we expect to be around late tonight, we will start tying the hull to the salvage barges, so it can be transported by a semisubmersible vessel to a port in Mokpo,” a ministry official said.

Despite the drizzle, salvage operators said they aim to complete lifting the hull and dock it onto the semisubmersible vessel by Friday, as the tides will get more extreme after that, which will create stronger currents that are more difficult to work in.

“We were expecting to see about 13 meters of the hull of the ferry above the surface by this morning, but due to delayed preparations, we may see it by late today or at midnight if there are no complications,” the Oceans and Fisheries Minister Kim Young-seok told reporters during a briefing. 

The ministry said the ship was being raised at an average of 3 meters per hour.

But in an emergency briefing at 10 p.m., the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries announced its decision to halt the lifting procedure temporarily, as one of the Sewol’s boarding ramps was found to be open, hampering the procedure for raising the ship.

“Salvage operators found at around 6 p.m. that during the process of sinking, it looks like one of the hinges holding the Sewol’s 11-meter-long boarding ramps broke. 

“We did not see this coming, so we decided to remove the ramp by cutting it off overnight and then resume the lifting,” said ministry official Lee Cheol-jo.

“We still aim to completely raise the ship to 13 meters above the surface by tomorrow and transport it onto a semisubmersible vessel by Friday midnight at the latest,” Lee added.

Salvage operators said it would take about a week to properly dock the ship on the semisubmersible vessel for transportation and to drain the water. The transport vessel will then deliver the ferry to a port in Mokpo, some 87 kilometers from the site.

It is expected to take around 12-13 days for the entire process, the ministry official said.

Once the ship is transported to a port in Mokpo, authorities will try to find the remains of the missing passengers and determine why the ship sank.

Prior to the actual lifting of the ship, the ferry was carefully test-lifted 1 meter from the seabed Wednesday, so experts could see if the vessel was ready to be raised.

The ship, lying on the floor of the sea on its left side, would normally weigh 8,300 metric tons according to the ministry, but water, stones and sand inside it have increased that to about 20,000 metric tons.

The government announced the salvage operation plan in 2015, but bad weather and high tides have several times delayed the resumption of operations to raise the wreckage of the ship.

By Kim Da-sol (ddd@heraldcorp.com)