Empty desks and tears mark 5 colleagues killed in South Korean aircraft crash

By Ju-min Park and Dogyun Kim

MUAN COUNTY, South Korea (Reuters) – Empty desks and a calendar marking days off after Christmas sit in a South Korean workplace the place 5 co-workers as soon as deliberate a vacation to Thailand which led to tragedy on Sunday when their return Jeju Air flight crashed.

The 5 feminine colleagues, who flew to Bangkok to have a good time promotions, had been among the many 179 folks killed when flight 7C2216 crashed on the Muan Worldwide Airport within the deadliest air catastrophe on South Korean soil.

Nonetheless in shock on the lack of their co-workers and mates, colleagues carrying black ribbons cried at their desks within the public schooling workplace on Tuesday, as they watched over a sufferer’s empty desk.

White chrysanthemums had been positioned on the desk in mourning, whereas bins with books and stationery awaited one other sufferer who was supposed to maneuver desks within the New Yr.

“It would not really feel actual,” mentioned Lee Dae-keun, an official at Jeollanamdo Workplace of Schooling who labored in the identical division as one sufferer.

“She remains to be lingering in my eyes. At any time when seeing flowers on that vacant desk, ah, unhappiness rushes in.”

Reuters will not be naming the victims on the request of colleagues who requested for privateness.

The lifeless staff had been an outdated group of labor mates who had been wanting ahead to their long-awaited journey, mentioned their co-workers.

“As a colleague, she was actually hard-working and good, a form colleague to others,” Lee mentioned with a sigh. “She at all times informed me to remain joyful and optimistic.”

Lee mentioned he had gone to the airport with different co-workers to supply meals or cost telephones for his or her colleagues’ bereaving households who had been tenting out.

On the workplace, officers arrange an altar the place colleagues and neighbours got here to pay condolences.

Bowing in tears on the altar, Lee Kwi-sun, a faculty chef, vividly remembered her final second of holding fingers with one other sufferer.

“Our names are related. We had been like misplaced siblings that simply met now. So we mentioned to fulfill once more, and held one another’s fingers and laughed and parted methods,” she recalled.

“I talked to her so much personally and professionally, so this simply breaks my coronary heart,” she mentioned