A man stands in front of an altar dedicated to the missing and dead passengers on board the capsized Sewol ferry, at a port in Jindo, April 28, 2014. 
 
 ANSAN South Korea (Reuters) - Six teenagers who survived South Korea's worst maritime disaster in 44 years told on Monday how classmates helped them float free as water flooded their cabins despite crew instructions to stay put even as their ferry sank, killing more than 300 people. 
 
 The teenagers, whose names were withheld to protect their privacy, were giving testimony at the trial of 15 crew members, who face charges ranging from homicide to negligence for abandoning the sinking ship. 
 
 "We were waiting and, when the water started coming in, the class rep told everyone to put on the life vests ... the door was above our heads, so she said we'll float and go through the door and that's how we came out," one of the teenagers said. 
 
 "Other kids who got out before us pulled us out." 
 
 The ferry Sewol sank on April 16, killing 304 people, as many as 250 of them school children on a field trip. Twelve of their teachers were also killed. 
 
 The ferry was on a routine trip from the port of Incheon south to Jeju island, carrying students and teachers from the Danwon High School on the outskirts of Seoul as well as other passengers and cargo. 
 
 Another of the teenagers told how crew members had told passengers, "specifically the students of Danwon High School", to stay in their cabins. 
 
 "Water started to fill in and friends helped us move out," the student said. 
 
 Others described how coastguard officers waited outside the stricken ferry for passengers to swim out rather than go into the ship to try and rescue them. 
 
 "They were outside. They pulled us (onto boats) but they didn't come inside to help," one said. 
 
 "We said to ourselves, 'why aren't they coming in?'." 
 
 "MORE FISHERMEN THAN RESCUERS" 
 
 Another student said it appeared there were more fishermen involved in the rescue than coastguard. Like others, she said the crew should be punished severely for their actions. 
 
 "More than that, I want to know the fundamental reason why my friends had to end up like that," she said. 
 
 The six teenage survivors described how there were repeated orders not to move from their cabins. Orders to put on their life vests came much later and without any information about what was happening to the ship as it began to list sharply. 
 
 They were the first of 75 children who survived due to give evidence in the trial at the Gwangju court, which has been moved to Ansan south of Seoul to accommodate the students. 
 
 Five of them gave their evidence facing away from the court. One testified from another room via closed-circuit television. 
 
 The crew members on trial, including the captain, Lee Joon-seok, have said they thought it was the coastguard's job to evacuate passengers. Video footage of their escape triggered outrage across South Korea. 
 
 Two musicians from the Philippines who had been working on the ship testified that the crew appeared to be in a state of panic as they gathered on the ship's bridge as it started to list, making no effort to get passengers off the vessel. 
 
 "I remember them panicked and worried," one of the pair, who was identified only by her first name, Alex, told the court. 
 
 She said the captain was crouched and holding onto a metal bar, apparently shaking with fear, and a junior ship's officer at the helm when the vessel started to list was crying loudly. 
 
 The government of President Park Geun-hye was heavily criticised over the slow and ineffective handling of the rescue operation. Park has vowed to break up the coastguard and streamline rescue operations, which are now split between the police, coastguard and others, into a single national agency. 
 
 The disaster also sparked South Korea's biggest manhunt as authorities searched for Yoo Byung-un, the man at the head of a family business that operated the doomed ferry. 
 
 Yoo's badly decomposed body was identified last week after it was found by a farmer at an orchard last month. 
 
 Earlier on Monday, a close associate of Yoo, a woman identified by police only by her last name of Kim, was arrested after handing herself in. It was believed she helped him elude police after the disaster. 
 
 Another woman, the wife of Yoo's driver who was thought to have been with him during his final days at large, also turned herself in to police. 
 
 Kim's arrest came three days after police stormed an apartment on the outskirts of Seoul and found Yoo's elder son, Dae-gyun, who was wanted for embezzlement. 
 
 Yoo Dae-gyun was not believed to have been as actively involved in management of the family business as his younger brother, who is believed to be in the United States. He said he only learned of his father's death from police. 
 
 Extensive decomposition of Yoo Byung-un's body meant it was not possible to determine the cause of his death despite forensic and DNA tests, authorities said last week. 
 
 (Writing by Jack Kim; Editing by Paul Tait and Robert Birsel) ||||| Student survivors of South Korea's ferry disaster testified at the murder trial of the captain and crew on Monday how they were left to fend for themselves in the sinking vessel. 
 
 One recalled orders for her and her classmates to stay put being relayed "over and over," until the ferry had listed so far that the door to their cabin was above their heads. 
 
 Another described watching a wave sweep her classmates back inside the sinking boat. 
 
 The actual trial is taking place in the southern city of Gwangju, but the judges and lawyers decamped to a court in Ansan city, south of Seoul, for a special two-day session with the 17 students who agreed to testify. 
 
 Police cordons blocked public access to the district court as the students -- all from Ansan's Dawon High School -- arrived in a red mini-bus and were escorted into the building by a tight phalanx of police officers. 
 
 Although they were offered the option of testifying by video from a nearby room, five of the six female students involved in Monday's morning session chose to give their testimony in the courtroom. 
 
 View gallery South Korean police guard a minibus carrying student survivors of the Sewol ferry as it arrives outs … 
 
 The student who took the video option described how passengers suddenly slid to one side as the ferry listed heavily. 
 
 - 'The door was above our heads' - 
 
 "The internal tannoy announcement said we should put our life vest on and stay put," she was quoted as saying by a pool reporter in the court, adding that the message was given repeatedly. 
 
 Of the 476 people on board the 6,825-tonne Sewol passenger ferry when it capsized on April 16 off the southern coast, 325 were Dawon High School pupils on an organised outing. 
 
 Only 75 students survived. 
 
 View gallery Sewol captain Lee Joon-Seok (centre) is escorted upon his arrival at the Gwangju District Court in t … 
 
 The female student said they had obeyed the order not to move until water started coming through the window of their cabin which, by now, was under their feet. 
 
 "The door was above our heads. We had our lifejackets on and the president of our class suggested we wait until we could float upwards and then escape," she said. 
 
 Eventually some classmates managed to clamber up fixed furniture. They pulled the others up and out as the waters inside rose. 
 
 Another witness, who testified in the courtroom, said at no time was she or those who escaped with her helped by any crew. 
 
 As the ferry keeled over to one side, she said a group of them managed to move along a now horizontal stairwell towards an escape hatch. 
 
 View gallery This file photo taken on April 16, 2014 shows the South Korea Coast Guard searching for passengers n … 
 
 - 'I dream about them' - 
 
 At the moment she jumped out, a sea swell swept over their escape route. 
 
 "There were many classmates in the corridor and most of them were swept back into the ship," she recalled. 
 
 "I sometimes think about those friends ... dream about them," she added. 
 
 Despite the trauma of their experience, the teenaged witnesses spoke calmly and clearly. 
 
 View gallery Relatives of victims of the Sewol disaster arrive at the Gwangju district court on July 8, 2014 duri … 
 
 The tragedy, and in particular the loss of so many young lives, rocked South Korea with an overwhelming sense of collective shock and grief. 
 
 Sewol captain Lee Joon-Seok and three senior crew members are accused of "homicide through wilful negligence" -- a charge that can carry the death penalty. 
 
 Eleven other crew are being tried on lesser violations of maritime law. 
 
 The bulk of the charges against the crew arise from the fact that Lee and the others chose to abandon ship while hundreds of people were still trapped inside. 
 
 The final death toll was just over 300. 
 
 Lee and his crew were publicly vilified in the wake of the tragedy, and there have been some expressions of concern about how fair their trial can be with emotions still running so high. 
 
 The sinking triggered a nationwide manhunt for a fugitive businessman, Yoo Byung-Eun, who headed the family which owned the company operating the Sewol. 
 
 Police announced last week that a badly decomposed body recovered six weeks ago from a field had been identified as Yoo's.
– Teens aboard the doomed South Korean ferry Sewol testified today as the trial of 15 crew members continues in the April tragedy. Five of the six kids faced away from listeners as they testified, while another testified from another room via video feed, Reuters reports. The teens called for harsh punishments for the crew, saying members "specifically" told the 250-odd students from their high school, who were on a field trip, to stay in their cabins while the ship sank. Those orders were repeated "over and over," a student said, per AFP. "We were waiting and, when the water started coming in, the class rep told everyone to put on the life vests," said one teen. "The door was above our heads, so she said we'll float and go through the door and that's how we came out." She added that "other kids who got out before us pulled us out." But even after some escaped, a wave pulled them back onto the boat, a student noted. The kids also offered troubling accounts of Coast Guard members, who they said helped them onto lifeboats but didn't actually enter the ship to help them. In a separate development, two reported associates of ferry owner Yoo Byung-un, who was recently found dead, have turned themselves in, Reuters reports.