Korea Herald1 hour agoWorld1 min readSouth Korea

Sewol ferry sinking archive, ancient cookbooks added to regional UNESCO list

UNESCO Memory of the World Committee for Asia and the Pacific recognizes records of the 2014 disaster and traditional culinary knowledge.

Quick Look

The UNESCO Memory of the World Committee for Asia and the Pacific has inscribed the 2014 Sewol ferry disaster archive and a collection of traditional Korean cookbooks onto its regional list, honoring both historical tragedy and cultural heritage.

AI-generated summary

Why It Matters

The Sewol ferry sank in 2014, resulting in 304 deaths, including 250 students from Danwon High School. The archive documents the tragedy and subsequent recovery efforts.

Font size

An archive documenting the 2014 Sewol ferry sinking and ancient Korean cookbooks have been added to a regional list of the UNESCO Memory of the World program Thursday.

The "Danwon High School 4.16 Archive: Records of Citizens' Memory and Healing Movements" was granted inscription at a general meeting of the UNESCO Memory of the World Committee for Asia and the Pacific held in Jakarta.

The "Suunjapbang and Eumsikdimibang: Community Archives of Traditional Korean Culinary Knowledge," another submission by South Korea, also made the list.

The Sewol archive comprises 235,220 pieces of records related to the maritime disaster on April 16, 2014, when the ferry sank en route to the southern resort island of Jeju, killing 304 passengers.

Danwon High School in Ansan, south of Seoul, suffered one of the biggest casualties, with 250 of 325 students who were aboard the ferry for a school trip killed.

In addition to documents, including a calendar for the month of April 2014 collected from a classroom at the school, the archive includes those detailing the recovery of bereaved family of victims and survivors.

The Korea Heritage Service said the archive captures the wounds of individuals, families and the communities and their efforts for recovery.

Kim Soon-gil, a mother of student victim Jin Yoon-hee, said she hopes the archive goes beyond the inscription to teach and educate the future generation about the ferry sinking.

With the latest additions, South Korea now has eight inscriptions on the regional list aimed at preserving documentary heritage across the Asia-Pacific region, including a set of traditional wooden plaques and "Maninso" (10,000 people's petitions).

Countries can submit three applications to be reviewed every two years for the Asia-Pacific list.