Reuters  

Seoul – The crew of a South Korean ship is facing arrest for dumping the bodies of 25 Chinese illegal immigrants into the sea after they suffocated in a storage tank, police officials said Tuesday.  

The authorities were still searching for the corpses of the 25 immigrants, part of a group of 60 people who were attempting to enter South Ko rea to find work, a police official said by telephone from the port of Yosu on the south ern tip of South Korea.  

The 35 survivors were in good condition and were being detained, the official said, adding that they would be de ported after receiving new travel documents from the Chinese Embassy in Seoul.  

Eleven of the survivors were ethnic Koreans from China, the official said.

The official said the police would soon issue arrest war rants for the South Korean captain and eight crew members on charges of involuntary homicide and abandoning corpses.  

News reports said the group had left the eastern Chinese port of Ningbo on Oct. 1 and switched to the South Korean ship at sea last Saturday.  

The ethnic Koreans, mostly from areas in north eastern China that border North Korea, face harsh living and working conditions. In a pattern repeated across coastal areas of China, the ethnic Koreans pay as much as 10 million won ($7,700) to traffickers who arrange pas sage to promised jobs in wealthy countries, often under perilous conditions.