S Korea honours warship victims

S KOREA: Flags flew at half-mast, a siren wailed and families wept Thursday as South Korea honoured 46 sailors killed in a mystery warship blast, amid growing suspicion that North Korea was to blame.

“We’ll never forgive whoever inflicted this great pain on us,” Navy Chief Kim Sung-Chan told a mass funeral for the victims of one of the country’s worst naval disasters.

“We will track them down to the end and we will, by all means, make them pay for this.”

Hundreds of thousands have this week visited flower-decked altars set up nationwide in memory of those killed when the 1,200-tonne corvette was ripped apart near the disputed inter-Korean border on March 26.

Investigators studying the two salvaged halves of the Cheonan say an external blast hit the ship underwater.

The defence minister has said a heavy torpedo was among the likeliest causes, although Seoul has not openly blamed Pyongyang pending the outcome of a multinational probe by more than 100 investigators.

The communist North has denied involvement.

Some 1,500-2,000 guests including bereaved relatives, government and military officials, ambassadors and foreign delegations attended the funeral at a naval base at Pyongtaek 70 kilometres (44 miles) south of Seoul. Pyongtaek, Thursday, AFP