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The South Korean Coast Guard is in the final stage of preparing for the salvage¹ efforts. Four crane barges² that can lift a thousand tons each, have arrived at the incident area. The 145-meter-long, 22-meter-wide passenger ferry is the biggest ferry among its class in South Korea. It will take all four crane barges to salvage the sunken ship. And before lifting it out of the water, the ferry has to be turned rightside up. 

Rescuers take a body on board. 

"Now, every article in the ferry is upside-down. In this case, if we carry out our salvage effort directly, there will be a secondary incident, which will lead to a more dangerous situation. So we need to recover the original shape before the salvage. It’s the basic principle." Head of the salvage team said. 

The salvage operation is being divided into four stages. The first step is to fix the wirerope onto the ship. This is expected to take 15 to 20 days. The second step is righting the ship with the help of the crane barges. Then it will be pulled to just below the water’s surface and the water will be expelled³ from the ship with the help of dewatering pumps. 

This may take a long time. Finally, the ship will be pulled out from beneath the water. The salvage operation also has to deal with bad weather and ocean conditions.