A South Korean court charged the captain and three crew members of the Sewol ferry of murder in connection with the sinking that killed hundreds of passengers last month, chief prosecutor Yang Joon-jin said Thursday.

Captain Lee Jon-seok, the ferry's chief engineer, and the first and second mates are all facing capital punishment if proven guilty of the charges, and could be the first to be meted the death penalty in South Korea in almost two decades.

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The rest of the crew members have been indicted for abandonment and for breaching a ship safety act.

The state prosecutor said Lee and the three crew members were facing murder charges for neglecting to use the ferry's safety facilities when needed, including the life vests, rafts, and communication devices to announce any evacuation plans to the passengers.

The captain and crew had ordered the Sewol passengers to remain in place and not to move even as the ferry started to tip over, which resulted in the high death toll. Seven crew members of the ferry were among those who first fled as soon as recue teams arrived. 

On April 16, the ferry sank while on its way to Jeju Island, killing 284 passengers most of whom were high school students and teachers who were on a field trip. Another 20 people remain unrecovered.

According to the prosecutors, the order to abandon ship was not announced, and no one among the crew knew how to deal with the emergency scenario because they were not trained for it.

The captain initially defended his actions saying that he decided not to let the passengers jump into the water lest the strong current would carry them away and that the water was too chilly for the passengers to wade in toward safety.

South Koreans were outraged after seeing footage of the captain hopping into the arms of a rescuer in his underwear while the rest of the passengers were still inside the sinking ferry.

Rescuers recovered a total of 242 bodies from inside the vessel, and another 42 bodies outside.

Maritime authorities tasked to undertake search and retrieval operations were expecting to face more difficulties in finding the rest of the missing passengers because of the strong currents around the area, forcing them to limit the operations, maritime police head Kim Seok-kyun said.