By Kim Se-jeong



The Sewol ferry, which capsized off Korea's southwestern coast on April 16, 2014, was loaded with 2,215 tons of cargo, more than double the amount the ferry was permitted to transport, an independent committee looking into the case announced Monday.



Overloading has been considered one of the major factors that made the ferry list before capsizing in the water off Jindo, an island near the southwestern coast. The overloaded cargo included steel bars to be used in the construction of a controversial naval base on Jeju Island, the committee said.



According to the Special Investigation Commission on the 4/16 Sewol Ferry Disaster, the cargo limit for the 6,835-ton passenger ship was 987 tons.



But it estimated that the actual cargo on the day of the accident weighed 2,215 tons, including 920 tons of trucks, cars and heavy equipment, 131 tons of containers and 1,164 tons of general goods. The commission reached these figures after reviewing the ferry's surveillance camera recordings and interviewing clients shipping cargo on the ferry.



"It raises the necessity to review the conditions of the ferry on departure," the commission said in its report. "We need to recalculate the weight of cargo and passengers and how this impacted the ferry before it capsized."



The commission also mentioned 405 tons of the cargo was steel bars for the construction of the naval base, significantly more than the 286 tons the prosecution's earlier investigation announced.



The finding fits in aggravating suspicions that the National Intelligence Service was the actual owner of the passenger ferry and it departed from Incheon despite bad weather to deliver the steel bars to the government-led naval base construction site.



Korea's worst maritime disaster claimed 295 out of 476 lives aboard the ferry, with an additional nine bodies yet to be recovered.



Salvage of the sunken ferry began last year, but progress has been delayed due to bad weather.



The independent commission is also in conflict with the government over the deadline for the investigation. The government argues that the investigation must be concluded at the end of this month because the special act on the ferry disaster, which took effect Jan. 1, 2015, called for an 18-month investigation. But the commission says it only became capable of carrying out the investigation last August when the necessary manpower and budget were allocated.



