Summary He also said the number of passengers and crew had been revised down to 459 from the 477.
SEOUL, April 16, 2014 (AFP) - South Korean officials indicated as many as 293 people were still unaccounted for after a ferry carrying 459 passengers and crew capsized off the south coast on Wednesday.
As the government retracted an earlier announcement that 368 people had been rescued, the Maritime Ministry said it could only confirm 164 had been brought to safety.
"The rest are unaccounted for," a ministry spokesman told AFP.
He also said the number of passengers and crew had been revised down to 459 from the 477 initially reported.
Two people were confirmed dead as the vessel capsized within two hours of sending a distress signal at 9:00am (0000 GMT).
Lee Gyeong-Og, the vice minister of security and public administration, said the inflated figure for the number of rescued had resulted from confused information arriving from multiple sources.
