July 21, 2021 12:36
All 301 crew of the destroyer Munmu the Great were flown back to Korea on Tuesday after a coronavirus outbreak on an anti-piracy mission off the Horn of Africa.
Some 266 of the contingent from the Navy s Cheonghae unit tested positive for COVID-19, including the captain and second-in-command.
The government said at least 14 members had to be hospitalized and three of them have serious symptoms. The remaining 287 were taken to isolation facilities.
Sailors of the Cheonghae unit wave from a bus to a quarantine facility at a military air base in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province on Tuesday. /Yonhap
None had been vaccinated and all were living at close quarters on the ship, whose ventilation system alone acted like a perfect conduit for the virus.
Virus-hit Cheonghae unit arrives home
Jul 21, 2021, 09:03 am
Defense Minister Suh Wook and other military officials welcome a KC-330 multirole aerial tanker that arrived at an air base in Seongnam, south of Seoul, on July 20, 2021, carrying members of the Cheonghae unit, where hundreds of sailors tested positive for the COVID-19./ Source: Ministry of National Defense
AsiaToday reporter Lee Seok-jong
All crew members of South Korea’s virus-hit Cheonghae naval unit returned home from Africa on Tuesday on KC-330 Cygnus multirole tanker airplanes after cutting short their overseas mission following a mass COVID-19 outbreak.
This is the first time that all the members of an overseas contingent have abandoned their mission and returned home due to an infectious disease. President Moon Jae-in said it is hard for the government to avoid criticism that its relevant measures were insufficient. The main opposition People Power Party (PPP) has urged the president to dismiss Defense Min
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People watch a TV showing an image of South Korean service members wearing protective clothes disinfect inside the naval destroyer Munmu the Great during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, July 20, 2021. South Korea s prime minister on Tuesday apologized for failing to carefully take care of the health of hundreds of sailors who contracted the coronavirus on a navy ship taking part in an anti-piracy mission off East Africa. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
SEOUL – South Korea’s prime minister on Tuesday apologized for “failing to carefully take care of the health” of hundreds of sailors who contracted the coronavirus on a navy ship taking part in an anti-piracy mission off East Africa.
July 20, 2021 Share
South Korea’s prime minister on Tuesday apologized for “failing to carefully take care of the health” of hundreds of sailors who contracted the coronavirus on a navy ship taking part in an anti-piracy mission off East Africa.
The outbreak aboard the destroyer Munmu the Great is the largest cluster South Korea’s military has seen. A total of 247 of the ship’s 301 crew have tested positive for COVID-19 in recent days, and the entire crew returned to South Korea aboard military planes on Tuesday evening.
None of the crew had been vaccinated because they left South Korea in early February, before the start of the country’s vaccination campaign.
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