MUAN, South Korea — Days before setting off on a vacation from which he would never return, Oh Jaejin’s father had been overjoyed at the prospect of becoming a grandfather after Oh told him that his wife was pregnant.
“He said he was about to cry,” said Oh, 37, tears welling as he recalled his father’s response to the news earlier this month. On Sunday, Oh’s father was killed along with 178 other people when the plane they were on, Jeju Air Flight 7C2216, left Bangkok and crash-landed at an airport in southwestern South Korea.
The accident, the world’s deadliest plane crash in recent years, turned the airport in Muan County into a place of colossal grief and shock for the hundreds of victims’ relatives who had rushed there. On Tuesday, that sadness swelled as officials slowly led families to a temporary morgue set up at the airport hangar, outside the terminal, to identify bodies that had been recovered from the charred and mangled wreckage.
The work of piecing together hundreds of body parts has been painstaking, but authorities said that by Tuesday morning 170 bodies had been identified, and four were turned over to their families. The crash was so devastating that only two people onboard survived — crew members who have since been hospitalized in Seoul. At the Muan airport, a memorial altar was being set up on the first floor on Tuesday for relatives and visitors to lay flowers.
The victims included toddlers and grandparents, entire families, groups of friends, and couples. To those who waited anxiously at the airport this week, they were their sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, and children.
Many of the relatives lived close by. People in the coastal region have traditionally fished or farmed rice, though many have also worked in petrochemical, steel, and shipbuilding plants since the country was modernized in the 1960s.
South Jeolla province — which is home to the airport, the only international airport in the region — has the oldest population in the country, with many young people moving to Seoul for better job opportunities.
One man said that he had lost his nephew who had traveled to Thailand with his whole family, including his wife, two children, and mother-in-law. Another said that he had lost both of his parents.
Oh’s father, who was 64, had been on vacation in Bangkok with seven childhood friends from Mokpo, a nearby city. In recent years, he often played golf with them in their free time, Oh said.
Oh had last seen his father, who owned a small store near Mokpo, on Christmas when he and his wife brought him some kimchi. He had told his father just this month that his wife was expecting, and that the baby would be a girl. Oh’s father was last in touch with his family when Oh’s mother messaged him to check on him on Saturday night. He responded that it was too loud where he was and couldn’t speak on the phone.
Oh, a bank teller also in Mokpo, said that his father had not even told him that he was going to Thailand, because he had not wanted his children to worry. He learned that his father was on the doomed flight only after the crash when his father’s friends called to tell him. Oh jumped in his car with his wife and drove to the airport. As he got close, he could see the tail of the aircraft sticking out on the horizon.
His mother, who arrived separately, was initially in denial. “Is this real?” he recalled her saying. “I can’t believe what’s happening.” But the reality slowly sank in, and it shattered her.
Officials confirmed on Sunday night that Oh’s father was among the dead.
But confusion followed, Oh said. Transportation officials arranged shuttles to take the families of the victims whose identities had been confirmed from the terminal to the temporary morgue in the hangar. Oh arrived around midnight, anxious to see his father’s body, and was told to wait for his turn.
Hours later, officials turned him away, saying they had made a mistake: The bodies were not ready for viewing. He returned home around 6 a.m.
On his second drive to the airport, after an hour of sleep, he noticed bodies scattered on the tarmac near the aircraft’s tail. Officials finally allowed him to return to the morgue later that day.
“I was very worried — I heard that a lot of the bodies were charred,” he said. “When I finally saw him, I was able to recognize his upper body, and he was fine.”
He asked the officials about the rest of his body. They told him that it was elsewhere but recoverable. He said that gave him some measure of relief.
“It looked like it was probably an instant death,” he said.
Later that day, Oh was told that it could take up to 10 days for all of the victims’ bodies to be ready to be returned to their families. That clarity helped, he said. “It felt better to know how much longer things might take rather than having to wait endlessly,” he said.
As he waited, Oh tried to handle his father’s affairs. He would have to close his father’s store. He was examining his father’s assets and debts. He said he wondered how he would cremate his father when there were so many victims but so few crematories.
He was also planning out his father’s funeral, which has been delayed. In South Korea, funerals typically take place right after the person’s death and last three days. He had to try to inform all of his father’s friends and acquaintances ahead of time, but he didn’t have access to his father’s cellphone contacts. He was taking time off from his job as a bank teller at a local agricultural cooperative.
“I’m not sure how I’ll keep smiling at the customers at my job when everything’s over and I get back to work,” he said. “People are going to ask if I’m OK, and I’m going to have to say I’m fine.”
Oh also said that Thursday was the annual memorial for his grandfather’s death and his mother’s birthday was this weekend. His wife was expected to give birth in July.
“Only good things were coming,” he said. “But my dad is gone.”
Oh said he planned to drive every day to the airport from his home in Mokpo as if it were his daily commute until he had his father’s remains.
“I want my father back as soon as he’s ready,” he said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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