President Park Geun-hye attended to official duties at her private residence during the 2014 ferry disaster, Cheong Wa Dae said Saturday, in yet another effort to defuse rumors about Park’s so-called “seven missing hours.”

On a new section of its official website, titled “This is the fact,” the presidential office revealed the detailed timeline of Park’s actions on April 16, 2014, which it had so far kept secret.

It said that Park received briefings or issued directives, related to the tragedy, some 30 times on April 16 when the ferry Sewol sank in waters off the southwestern island of Jindo, leaving some 300 passengers, mostly young students, dead or missing.

It marks the first time that the presidential office has clarified through it’s website Park’s exact location on the day of the sinking. Cheong Wa Dae posted information on its official website in a section dedicated to “correcting false reports and rumors.”

The new revelation, however, is unlikely to quell the controversy over Park’s mishandling of the national disaster.

It only reconfirmed that the president was never briefed by anyone in person or held a meeting, while the nation watched the ferry slowly sink on live TV, with hundreds of students on a class trip trapped inside.

In an indication of her lack of understanding of the situation, Park had showed up at the disaster control center at around 5:15 p.m., seven hours after the incident, and asked, “Why is it hard to find those students? I heard they all had life vests on.”

This had given rise to rumors that she may have been absent from Cheong Wa Dae for the seven hours or for some reason unable to tend to her duties.

The presidential office, last week, denied one of the rumors that Park was under anesthesia related to a cosmetic medical procedure.

Rep. Moon Jae-in of the main opposition Democratic Party lambasted Cheong Wa Dae’s new explanation, saying it means Park never left her home that day, not even for her own office.

“That Park used her office in residence is synonymous with that Park did not even come to work that day,” said Moon, who served as the chief of staff to the late President Roh Moo-hyun.

“What did you do during those urgent hours, not come to work?” the opposition political asked.

Cheong Wa Dae argued the president is on duty, regardless of where she is and that the office in her residence is one of Park’s three working spaces in Cheong Wa Dae, along with the main station in the office building and another office in the secretariat building.

From news reports


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