Empty offices and tears mark the deaths of five colleagues in a plane crash in South Korea by Reuters

Written by Joo Min Park and Doojeon Kim

MUAN COUNTY, South Korea (Reuters) – There are empty desks and a calendar marking the holidays after Christmas in a South Korean office where five co-workers once planned a vacation to Thailand that ended in tragedy on Sunday when their Jeju Air flight back crashed.

The five female colleagues, who traveled to Bangkok to celebrate the promotions, were among 179 people killed when Flight 7C2216 crashed at Muan International Airport in the deadliest air disaster on South Korean soil.

Colleagues wearing black ribbons, still in shock over the loss of their colleagues and friends, cried at their desks in the Public Instruction Office on Tuesday, as they watched the victim’s empty office.

White chrysanthemums were placed on the desk in mourning, while boxes of books and stationery awaited another victim who was supposed to move desks in the new year.

“It doesn’t seem real,” said Lee Dae-kyun, an official at the Jeollanamdo Education Office who worked in the same department as one of the victims.

“It lingers in my eyes. Whenever I see flowers on that empty desk, oh, the sadness rushes in.”

Reuters did not mention the names of the victims at the request of colleagues who requested privacy.

Coworkers said the dead employees were an old group of work friends who were looking forward to their long-awaited trip.

“As a colleague, she was hard-working and kind, and she was a nice teammate to others,” she told me with a sigh. “She always told me to stay happy and positive.”

He told me that he went to the airport with other colleagues to deliver food or charge phones to the bereaved families of their colleagues who were camping outside.

At the office, officials set up an altar where colleagues and neighbors came to pay their respects.

Lee Kui-sun, the school cook, knelt down in tears at the altar, vividly remembering her last moment when she held the hand of another victim.

“Our names are the same,” she recalls. “We were like lost siblings who had just met. So we said we’d meet again, held hands, laughed and parted ways.”

“I talked to her a lot both personally and professionally, and it broke my heart,” she said.