DHAKA: Emergency services are continuing to search for nearly 300 people missing after a ferry carrying more than 470 sank off South Korea.

Officials say 179 people have been rescued. Most of the passengers on board were students and teachers from the same high school on a field trip.

Emergency teams used floodlights to search for survivors overnight but divers were unable to enter the ship.

At least nine people are confirmed to have died, with dozens more injured.

The vessel was travelling from Incheon Port, in the north-west, to the southern resort island of Jeju.

South Korea`s Yonhap news agency said the nine dead include four 17-year-old students and a 25-year-old teacher as well as a 22-year-old female crew member. Identities of the other three were not immediately known.

The latest figures say 475 people were on board with 287 still unaccounted for.

It is not yet clear what caused the ship to list at a severe angle and flip over, leaving only a small part of its hull visible above water.

Rescue efforts are concentrated on the ship`s wreckage, which sank in about 30m (98ft) of water. Many passengers are thought to be trapped inside.

Source: BBC
BDST: 0933 HRS, APR 17, 2014