The grim work of recovering bodies from the submerged South Korea ferry proceeded rapidly today, with the official death toll reaching 146, though a government official said divers must now rip through cabin walls to retrieve more victims.
The victims are overwhelmingly students of a single high school in Ansan, near Seoul.
More than three-quarters of the 323 students are dead or missing, while nearly two-thirds of the other 153 people on board the ferry Sewol when it sank one week ago survived.
Even with more than 150 people still missing, the funeral halls in Ansan are already full, Oh Sang-yoon of the government-wide emergency task force centre said in a statement.
In Ansan, a temporary memorial for the victims opened at Olympic Museum, a couple of blocks from Danwon High School, which the students attended.
