The Sewol ferry, which sank off the coast of South Korea almost three years ago, costing 304 lives, partially emerged from the water Thursday as a huge salvage operation got underway.
The disaster continues to leave a deep scar in South Korea. The vast majority of the victims were high school students, and they went down on a ship that had been dangerously modified and insufficiently inspected.
"Part of the Sewol's structure, which is believed to be its stabilizer, was seen above the water with naked eyes," an official from the Oceans and Fisheries Ministry told reporters Thursday after two barges lifted the ship in the early morning hours.
Technical difficulties had prevented South Korean authorities from raising the 6,825-ton ship, which had been lying on its side at a depth of about 130 feet near the island of Jindo, off the southwest coast.
But after preparations that included installing flotation devices in the ferry, authorities deemed the weather was calm enough to test lifting the hull.
They lifted it about six feet from the sea floor on Wednesday and, since that test went well, they decided to proceed with raising the ferry to the surface early Thursday morning.
The first part of the ferry emerged from the water at about 3:45 a.m. local time. The barges will move the vessel onto a partly submerged ship to be taken to Mokpo port.
The whole operation, which is being led by China's state-run Shanghai Salvage, is expected to take eight days, then another four days to move it onto a dry dock, at a cost of some $72 million.
People gathered at memorials in Ansan, just outside Seoul, on Thursday to pray for the recovery of the missing.
"Three years have passed. I cannot imagine what the families have gone through," Song Cheol-sub, a 59-year-old visiting a memorial, told The Korea Herald. "I wish the causes of the ferry sinking will come out to the surface as well."
The ferry was carrying 476 passengers to the southern island of Jeju on April 16, 2014, when it started sinking in bad weather.
The ferry listed for more than an hour before it capsized, but the operators of the ship told people to stay where they were. That led to chilling videos sent by teenagers on board, laughing as the ship began to tip without realizing the peril that they were in.
Only 172 people were rescued before the ferry went down. Of the remaining passengers, 295 bodies were recovered - the vast majority of them students from Danwon High School in Ansan - but the remains of nine people have never been found.
The ferry captain, Lee Joon-seok, abandoned the ship with the help of rescue workers while it was sinking. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Fourteen other crew members were jailed for between two and 12 years for their role in the disaster.
The disaster also caused huge political damage to then-president Park Geun-hye, whose whereabouts were unknown for seven hours on the day of the disaster. This became the subject of intense criticism in South Korea and contributed to the public dissatisfaction that forced Park from office earlier this month.
She was impeached on charges of corruption and leaking confidential information and is now subject to prosecution. She strongly denies any wrongdoing.