Divers recover more bodies from South Korean ferry

SEOUL, South Korea - Divers helped by better weather and easing ocean currents retrieved 12 passengers' bodies from the sunken South Korean ferry Monday, raising the death toll to 260 with 42 people still missing.

Monday is a South Korean holiday, Children's Day, but various events were canceled or postponed because of the ferry's sinking. The Sejong Center for the Performing Arts, run by the Seoul city office, canceled a handful of outdoor events and music festivals on the holiday.

As of Sunday 1.1 million people had paid respects at 131 memorial altars around the nation, according to a governmental funeral support committee set up for the ferry victims.

The Sewol carried 476 people, most of them students from a single high school. Only 174 survived, including 22 of the 29 crew members.

In searching for the missing, divers were working their way into the last three unopened rooms, next to a snack bar on the ferry's third floor, a spokesman for the emergency task force, Ko Myung-seok, told reporters.

Meanwhile, the joint investigation team probing the cause of the sinking formally arrested employees of the ferry owner Chonghaejin Marine Co. Ltd. on suspicion of negligence. Prosecutor Yang Jung-jin said three employees who handled cargo were formally arrested on Friday and on Sunday, while an executive of the company was detained.

In all 19 people have been arrested in the investigation, 15 of them crew members accused of abandoning passengers. An executive with ties to Chonghaejin was arrested on suspicion of malpractice related to company finances.

Improper stowage and overloading of cargo is suspected as a possible reason the ferry sank. The ferry was carrying an estimated 3,608 tons of cargo, more than three times what it could safely carry. A ferry loaded too heavily could lose its balance making even a small turn.