Stuff You Should Know

The Sewol Ferry Disaster

April 16, 2026·45 min·4-min readconversationalculture
Podzilla Summary (4 min)
TLDR
On April 16, 2014, the South Korean ferry Sewol sank while en route to Jeju Island, killing 304 people—250 of them high school students on a field trip—despite ample time to evacuate. The disaster was entirely preventable and resulted from systemic failures including corporate greed, gove

Sign up to read the full summary

Free AI-powered recaps of every episode, delivered to your inbox.

Get Free Summaries →

Free forever for up to 3 podcasts. No credit card required.

Mentions

Books, people, and resources mentioned in this episode.

People

Lee Joon-seokYoo Byung-eunPark Geun-hye

Companies

Chonghaejin MarineDanwon High School

Products & Tools

Sewol ferry

Topics

Criminal JusticeGeopoliticsInvestigative JournalismLong Form JournalismTrue Crime

Listen to This Episode

Get summaries like this every morning.

Free AI-powered recaps of Stuff You Should Know and your other favorite podcasts, delivered to your inbox.

Get Free Summaries →

Free forever for up to 3 podcasts. No credit card required.