Relatives of the victims left a memorial center on Jindo, a southern island near the site of the sinking, hours before Ms. Park arrived. Before departing, they put up large banners accusing her government of blocking an independent investigation into its failures during rescue efforts and the causes of the sinking. The banners also called for the raising of the 6,825-ton ferry from the sea bottom — a costly project that Ms. Park said her government would undertake “as soon as possible.”

Ms. Park’s response to the disaster has thus far been her biggest legacy as president.

“It’s time to overcome the pains and hardship from the Sewol incident and move on to build a new South Korea,” Ms. Park said from Jindo, where she viewed photographs of victims, including nine still missing. “We cannot stay trapped in the sadness and frustrations that have gripped us for the past year.”

An association of student victims’ families issued a statement saying that Ms. Park had “no qualifications” as president. It accused her of trying to place blame for the disaster not on her government’s regulatory failures but on what she has called the people’s “indifference toward safety.”

Over the decades, South Koreans have suffered a war, a military dictatorship and a string of disasters often attributed to disregard for safety standards in the country’s mad rush for economic growth. But few disasters have shocked South Koreans more than the Sewol sinking.