But not for everybody. Not for the people directly affected by disaster. And not for those counting on the people in power to help keep them safe. And so we decided we would go back to earlier headline-grabbing events to see if words were followed with action.

I asked Bryant Rousseau, the primary editor on the Promises Made series, to tell us how he thinks about it. This is what he wrote:

“When their people are scared or outraged or suffering or at risk of dying in great numbers, governments around the world make promises. They promise that preventable accidents will never happen again. They promise to rebuild after wars and disasters. Laws will be changed, money will be spent and life will be made better. Promise.

“The Times’s project aims to hold governments accountable to their vows. When promises have been kept, we’ll give credit. But we’ll call out governments and businesses that have failed to fulfill their promises and demand to know why, and what’s being done now to meet them. Promise.”

So far we have revisited the peace treaty between the Colombian government and the FARC rebels, and the Grenfell Tower fire in London, which left 72 dead.

In Colombia, we found a peace deal in trouble, with thousands of fighters having picked up arms again and hundreds killed since the treaty was signed. In London, we found that thousands of people are still living in firetraps because the government has been slow to remove the flammable cladding that caused Grenfell to burn like a torch. I invite you to take a look at those pieces if you haven’t already.

Today, we look at Sewol.

After the ferry went down, we spent weeks looking into what had gone wrong. We came away with the conclusion that blame lay with greed, corruption and a culture of doing business that seems to prioritize profit over human life.

The government said it would respond with strong regulations. Have they measured up? Take a look at our story and see.