The transport of cargoes carried by coastal and ocean-going vessels has increased with the rapid growth of the Korean economy these days. This increase of the sea-borne cargoes has made the Korean coastal traffic so congested that this can be a cause of large pollution as well as great marine casualties such as loss of human lives and properties. Marine casualties generally result from the complicated interaction of natural and human factors; the former being the topographic, marine traffic volume and meteorological conditions, and the latter being the quality of seafares. In this paper, the authors analyse the trend of marine casualties in the Korean coastal and clear up the cause of accidents and examine closely the mutual relations among sea accidents, weather conditions, and marine traffic volume. These accidents are classified into several patterns on hte point of view of ship's size, ship's type and ship's age and its characteristics of each pattern are described in detail. Also, the authors estimate the amount of economical losses resulting from marine casualties which are classified into the accident patterns, and clarify the effects of those losses on B/B(Balance Sheet) and P/L(Profit & Loss) of Korean shipping companies and Korean national economy. The analyzed results of marine casualties are summarized as follows: 1) The average number of sea accidents is 248 cases per year with the loss of 107 persons during last 13 years. 2) Collision is the top of causes of sea accidents (approx. 36.4%), shipwreck the second (approx. 20.3%), agroung the third rank (approx. 18.2%). 3) The ship's number under 1, 000G/T is approx. 74% of total ship's number of accidents. 4) 80% of total number of marine accidents is taken plact at the coastal waters. (involved ports & narrow channels) 5) Marine casualties are occur likely to in the night, the winter and the summer. 6) The average amount of economical losses is approx. 18.5 billion won. (approx. 0.14% of GNP) 7) Shipwreck is the top of the amount of economical losses (approx. 60.4%), collision the second (aprox. 24.5%), aground the third (approx. 9.9%). 8) The amount of economical losses is approx. 5.24% of gross capital of shipping co., 1.24% of shipping revenue, 1.38% of shipping total income in 1983.

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