“Honestly, I cannot accept what has happened and that they died. I feel like I am dreaming,” he said, adding that he was focusing on caring for his grieving family members.
“My turn to allow the feelings of profound loss to get to me is only when I am alone at night,” he said. “I might be able to accept the reality when I see their photos during the funeral procession. How can you accept that it was only a week ago that they left you saying they are going on a nice trip but that they will never return home,” he added.
In the makeshift tent community the sound of snores is clearly audible in the evenings. Others sleep where they can, on chairs or the ground.
During the day, children play with their toys and teenagers huddle together on their cellphones. Grief and exhaustion show plainly on their faces.
Lawyers are also on site offering their legal advice to families free of charge and officials have set up a briefing area where they provide their updates to families.
U.S. investigators
Outside, the search continues with American investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board joining their South Korean counterparts Tuesday.
Wearing full hazmat suits in the freezing cold temperatures they search through the charred, blacked wreckage, aided by a large crane.
The American team arrived at the scene the day after South Korea’s Acting President Choi Sang-mok ordered an emergency safety inspection of the country’s entire airline operation. The country’s National Police Agency also said it was making all-out efforts to speed identification of the bodies, by allocating more personnel and equipment such as rapid DNA analysers.
There is still no definitive answer on what exactly caused the crash, but two black boxes retrieved from the aircraft — the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder — were transferred to a test center Monday morning.
But at a briefing Monday Yu Kyung-soo, director of aviation safety policy at South Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, or MOLIT, said in a briefing Monday that the pilot issued a “bird strike” warning, used to alert a collision between at least one bird and an aircraft, shortly before the crash.
The pilot then declared “mayday,” Yu said.
