MASSIVE SHIP SINKS IN SOUTH KOREA

At least four people have been killed and more than 300 are still missing after a ferry carrying mostly schoolchildren sank off of South Korea. Emergency services have managed to save 164 people from the submerged boat, but officials fear hundreds could still be trapped inside. Dozens of boats, helicopters and divers scrambled to rescue more than 470 people were were aboard the 6,825-ton ferry in what emergency services are calling the country's biggest peacetime disaster in 20 years.

The South Korean Coast Guard fear the number of casualties could rise 'drastically' as they continue to drag passengers out of the water and try to locate people who were still inside the boat when it sank.  The ferry was sailing to the southern island of Jeju when it sent a distress call Wednesday morning after it began leaning to one side, according to the Ministry of Security and Public Administration. 

Coast guard footage showed the vessel submerged with only its bow visible 12 miles from Byeongpoong island off the southwest corner of the Korean peninsula. The government said about 95 percent of the ship was submerged.

The Ministry of Security and Public Administration named 27-year-old woman Park Ji-yeong, a female employee of the boat operator and high school student Jeong Cha Woong as the victims, according to Bloomberg.

As well the passengers, there were 150 vehicles on board the ferry Sewol, officials said. Witnesses said many people were likely still inside the vessel.

An official from the Danwon High School in Ansan, a Seoul suburb, had earlier said all of its 338 students and teachers had been rescued, but that figure could not be confirmed by the coastguard as the search effort continued.

The cause of the disaster was not immediately clear although some survivors reported that the ship appeared to have been involved in some sort of impact.

'It was fine then the ship went 'boom' and there was a noise of cargo falling,' said Cha Eun-ok, who was on deck of the ferry taking photographs when the disaster began.

'The on-board announcement told people to stay put ... people who stayed are trapped,' she said in Jindo, the nearest town from the scene of the accident.

A member of the crew of a government ship involved in the rescue, who said he had spoken to members of the sunken ferry's crew, said the area was free of reefs or rocks and the cause was likely some sort of malfunction on the vessel.