On the morning of April 16th a South Korean passenger ferry, the Sewol, capsized and sank on its way from Incheon port to Jeju island, a popular resort. It was carrying 459 people, more than half of whom were students from a high school near Seoul. As The Economist went to press, only three deaths were confirmed, but nearly 300 were still missing. The government immediately deployed 30 ships and a dozen helicopters in a mass rescue operation, but the 6,825-tonne ferry sank surprisingly fast. Within a few hours, only a portion of its bow was visible. Chonghaejin Marine, the company which owns and operates the ferry, says it passed a routine survey two months ago. It can carry 900 people and over 100 vehicles, suggesting overloading was not the problem, as it was in South Korea’s last fatal ferry accident in 1993, when 292 people died.