Student survivors testify in Korea ferry trial

Student survivors of South Korea's ferry disaster, testifying for the first time Monday in the murder trial of the captain and crew, recalled being repeatedly told to stay put as the ship was sinking.
      
"They kept saying the same thing over and over," one said, describing how she and classmates obeyed the order until the ferry had listed so far that the door to their cabin was above their heads.
      
Another described watching a wave sweep her classmates back inside the sinking boat.
      
The actual trial is taking place in the southern city of Gwangju, but the judges and lawyers decamped to a court in Ansan city, south of Seoul, for a special two-day session with the 17 students who agreed to testify.
      
Police cordons blocked public access to the district court as the students -- all from Ansan's Dawon High School -- arrived in a red mini-bus and were escorted into the building by a tight phalanx of police officers.
      
Although they were offered the option of testifying by video from a nearby room, five of the six female students involved in Monday's morning session chose to give their testimony in the courtroom.
                      
The student who took the video option described how passengers suddenly slid to one side as the ferry listed heavily.
      
"The internal tannoy announcement said we should put our life vest on and stay put," she was quoted as saying by a pool reporter in the court, adding that the message was given repeatedly.
      
Of the 476 people on board the 6,825-tonne Sewol passenger ferry when it capsized on April 16 off the southern coast, 325 were Dawon High School pupils on an organised...