6,000 South Korean police storm church compound in search for ferry fugitive

Thousands of South Korean police forced their way into the compound of a splinter religious group yesterday in their search for a fugitive businessman wanted in connection with April's ferry disaster.

Live television reports showed police officers, many in full riot gear, streaming into the sprawling church and farming complex in a morning raid in Anseong, 80km south of Seoul.

A spokesman for the Gyeonggi province police force said 6,000 officers were involved.

The huge operation came a day after President Park Geun-hye urged police and prosecutors to step up a manhunt for Yoo Byung-eun, 72, a leading member of the Evangelical Baptist Church of Korea.

Yoo is patriarch of the family behind Chonghaejin Marine - the company that owned and operated the 6,825-tonne Sewol passenger ferry which sank on April 16 with the loss of 300 lives, most of them schoolchildren.