| Workers take down Sewol tents at Gwanghwamun Square in central Seoul, Monday. Yonhap |
| Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul |
| Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul |
| Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul |
| Yonhap |
By Jung Min-ho
A memorial altar, tents and yellow ribbons for victims of the 2014 Sewol disaster have been removed from Gwanghwamun Square ― after nearly five years.
Workers from the Seoul Metropolitan Government took down all 14 tents and emptied what had long been called the “Sewol memorial space” in central Seoul Monday.
The move was taken after the city government and victims' families agreed to replace them all with a smaller structure, which is expected to be set up in time for April 16, the fifth anniversary of the tragedy.
Portraits of the victims had already been relocated from the altar to the basement of Seoul City Hall.
The families and their supporters set up the altar in the symbolic area to demand a thorough investigation into the sinking of the ferry, which killed 304 people, mostly high school students on a school excursion to Jeju Island.
A 20-meter-long rectangular wooden structure will be placed on one side of Gwanghwamun Square to display visual records of the tragedy as well as other major accidents that have left painful imprints on modern Korean society, including the 1994 Seongsu Bridge collapse and the 1995 Sampoong Department Store collapse.