Cheonan Sinking: History And Background Of South Korean Ship

by Yuliya Talmazan | March 26, 2010 at 04:12 pm
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Cheonan Sinking Might Lead To Escalation Of Tensions Between South And North Korea

ROKS Cheonan (PCC-772) sank near Baengnyeong Island in Yellow Sea last in night, potentially setting up a dangerous diplomatic situation.

The ship started sinking around 9:30 PM local time on March 26 after an explosion at the rear end. A rescue operation has been launched. Fifty eight sailors have been rescued so far. The cause of sinking is unknown, but a torpedo attack from North Korea is not ruled out.

What is the history behind Cheonan?

Cheonan is a Pohang class corvette a small, maneuverable, lightly armed warship used by South Korean Navy for coastal defense. According to South Korean Navy website, a patrol combat corvette is typically a 88-meters-long, 1,200-ton ship capable of carrying a crew of 90 or above. This kind of ship can have an anti-submarine, anti-ship or an anti-aircraft use.

Cheonan was a twenty-one-year-old ship that was commissioned in 1989. Last night, Cheonan was on a routine patrol mission with a crew of 104 men before beginning to sink on the maritime border with North Korea.

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0
Mike McD

They believe it to be an accident, not an act of North Korea.

3
Chiez Z

They should not "believe" it to be anything with whats at stake here. Either they do not know and are investigating, or someone on the ship confirms and they can then say that it WAS an accident.

0
Pliskin

So far, reports I have seen have survivors talking about how the back half of the boat sank in two minutes.  The ship when it blew up keeled to the right.  Many of the survivors think it was no accident.  My money is on navy mine or torpedo.

0
john Archer

my personal speculation on this matter is that it might involve to possibilities: 1) the explosion might be a human error or 2) it might have been a cause of a submarine attack. i think that the south korean government should scan the area of the incident using SONAR (sound and navigation ranging) since the navy can't dive to the wreck site due to poor visibility, strong current and the murky water. any foreign object under the water can be easily seen, identified and reflected on the SONAR. were there some survivor? i didn't exactly know if there were or if there weren't because my attention wasn't focused enough on the news when i was watching tv. but didn't the korean government thought of the possibility that the crews were abducted and held hostage by whoever did this before bombing the ship? there are countless speculations and possibilities regarding this incident and i dont believe that murky water and strong current are not an issue to wait for the right time to investigate. is the south korea has the technology to investigate, why wait tomorrow if they can do it now?

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Gary L

Korean technology is almost at top in this world. Just suppose how many industralized corporations korea has. Sam Sung, LG, Hynix, KT, SK Telecom, Hyundai, KIA, DaeWoo, Ssang Yong, Posco, DooSan, Lotte, etc. Those corporations have invested so many countries including european countries, america, the rest of asian countries, africa, or somewhere like this. However, the biggest problem issued is that korean politicians don't tend to try for their domestic incident to be reinforced a lot. UN secretary general "KI-MOON, BAN" also doesn't try any work for his own country cause he also think there isn't any profit that he can get at all as well as the other domestic politician. I think the biggest problem is that the world society makes them to be more selfish in each. In the case of Japan, they are also the most significant competitor with Korea in technological capability. What's the reason of that many japanese citizens tend to live abroad rather than remainning in Japan?  

0
Don McElfresh, Dallas, Texas

The ROK Navy has several excellent underwater search teams that use side scan sonar, sub- bottom profilers, rov's and underwater video cameras. In 1995 two ROK Navy search boats out of Inchon found our contact in the Yellow Sea in 240 feet of water southwest of Paengnyong-do, that was sunk in 1951.

1
ST Han

I'm not sure anyone will see this message from Korea. Based up the revealed facts so far here, it's obvious that the ship was not attacked by torpedo, explosion. There's no trace by explosion. The rescued marines didn't get hurt, their clothes were not wet at that time. Even there's no sign of high temperature. Wires at the broken suface were just normal. Our government didn't open anything that happened during the sink. Most of Koreans believe that our ship was just broken by accumlated stress to the ship itself and/or collision with a U.S. submarine that was pasticipating in the practice. I can not recall the name of the U.S. submarine boat. Maybe there were some U.S. casualties from this accident that the U.S. governemt didn't open yet. Currently the U.S. seems to be going to force Korea to speed up the FTA agreement for the payment that they are supporting Korean government's lie to its people.

0
HMS Hood

This ship was sunk by a torpedo. No good news for both nations.

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Sudha Krishna
First Flagged at 4:13 PM, Mar 26, 2010 by Sudha Krishna
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