The sunken ferry Sewol has inflicted serious trauma on South Korea; not only because we couldn't save most of the victims, most of them high school students, but because of how we have sacrificed them.

Numerous systemic issues which have been painfully revealed by this accident, certainly not the first of its kind, indicate there are critical issues throughout South Korean society.

Tracking down the fundamental causes of the tragic accident brings us chains of problems, from the loosening regulations allowing the owners of Sewol, Cheonghaejin Marine, to purchase a 19-year-old ship from Japan and to refurnish and expand, waved through safety checks, to the lack of safety drills for passengers.

And at the moment the ferry began to sink, new sets of problems were exposed; a slow and chaotic initial response, unethical behavior by the captain and some crew members who left the ship faster than anyone else, the false announcement that every single one of the passengers had been saved, inappropriate comments and behaviors by politicians visiting the site, the media race creating several false reports, and finally President Park Geun-hye calling the captain a murderer, throwing the entire blame on a single unethical person.

In reality, this kind of total breakdown of the crisis management results from systematic issues that get attention every once in a while but have never been fixed.

The only thing that was "normal" in this accident seems to be the behavior of those high school students who dutifully obeyed the "Don't move and stay still" order, which eventually led them into the cold, dark water.

This devastated South Koreans. Throughout the accident we saw tragically familiar features; insensitivity to safety, the dodging of regulations and taking of the stance that "the ends justify the means."

As far as I can remember, I never participated in safety drills in South Korea throughout my school years, even during the time when I lived in a dormitory which had once burned down in the 1970s. 

I've never taken safety that seriously to be honest, thinking bad things would happen only if you're unlucky. I believe other South Koreans, especially those at the helm, didn't take such concerns seriously either. If they did, South Korea, technically still at war with North Korea and surrounded by water on three sides, would have been obsessed with safety concerns.

This is why we cannot conclude this accident just blaming the captain and crew members, especially 12 out 17 crew members  in charge of the deck and the engine were temporary workers contracted for less than one year, a growing trend in South Korea.

There are always unethical, irresponsible members in any society, like the captain, but there are also good people like 22 year-old crew member Park Ji-young, who died after saving others.

Making a system that can prevent people from being irresponsible and protect good people is everyone's responsibility.

South Korea has seen man-made disasters like this about once every 10 years. "Smaller" safety accidents happen even more frequently.

There was an explosion in Ulsan, a coastal city in southeastern South Korea, on Monday which took lives of two workers, following several similar accidents last year.

We will have similar accident unless we realize once and for all that it is not mere misfortune anymore when similar accidents keep happening.

The author is a reporter with the Global Times. gayoungpark@globaltimes.com.cn