The confirmed death toll from South Korea's ferry disaster rose past 50 on Sunday as divers finally found a way inside the sunken vessel, quickly discovering more than a dozen bodies in what almost certainly is just the beginning of a massive and grim recovery effort.

About 250 people are still missing from the ship, the vast majority of them high school students who had been on a holiday trip.

The ferry, Sewol, sank Wednesday off South Korea's southern coast, but it took days for divers to get in because of strong currents and bad visibility due to foul weather.

Beginning late Saturday, when divers broke a window, and continuing into Sunday, multiple teams of divers have found various routes into the ferry, discovering bodies in different spots, a coast guard official Koh Myung-seok said at a briefing.

Thirteen bodies have been found in the ship, while six other bodies were found floating outside Sunday, bringing the official death toll to 52, the coast guard said.

Divers, who once pumped air into the ship in the slim hope that survivors were inside, have yet to find anyone alive there.

1. Various of Korean Coast Guards on Coast Guard boat examining three bodies in body bags recovered from the sea at the site of the sinking of the Sewol ferry

2. Pan Coast Guard officer walking on the boat towards the direction where bodies are being examined

3. Close up body bags

4. Wide Korean Navy boat searching in the area where the ship Seowl sank

5. Wide rescue operation

6. Wide coast guards and other rescue units searching the area where ship sank

7. Wide Korean special unit UDT Seal searching the area

8. Various of rescue units searching

9. Mid Coast guards loading a recovered body onto a Korean police boat

10. Wide Korean Coast Guards boat next to Police boat

11. Military helicopter flying over the area of the recovery mission

12. Wide crane

13. Close crane

14. Coast guards on boat

Relatives of missing passengers on board sunken ferry Sewol were taken to the site of the disaster on Thursday, more than a week after it sank off South Korea's southern coast.

Meanwhile, more bodies were unloaded at Paengmok Port on Jindo island as the death rose above 160. 140 are still missing.

Navy divers plunged deeper into the ferry on Thursday as they searched the rear of the ferry's fourth floor, officials said.

The coast guard and a rescue company were searching the middle section of the same floor, and another team was to search the front and middle of the fourth floor.

Looming in the background is a sensitive issue: When to bring in the cranes and begin the salvage effort by cutting up and raising the submerged vessel.

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At Sea near Jindo

1. Relatives of missing passengers on police boat, woman shouting

2. Various of relatives on police boat

3. Wide of search area

4. Search crews in boats near inflatable markers in water

5. Search boats on site

6. Various of police boat

7. Various of search crews

8. Tracking shot of divers on orange outboard motor boat sailing past

9. Coastguard vessel in background, anchor on ship in foreground

Paengmok Port

10. Various of tents and emergency workers on pier

11. Ambulances on pier

12. Emergency workers carrying body out of tent

13. Various of ambulance driving off pier

14. South Korean flags on vessel docked at pier