Last-minute communications between a sunken South Korean ferry and a vessel traffic center were disclosed Sunday by pan-government emergency management headquarters.

Full communication logs between the Sewol ferry and Jindo vessel traffic service (VTS), which were conducted over 10 times from 9:07 am to 9:38 am, showed many passengers may lost chances to escape from the ship because of the captain's misjudgment.

Captain Lee Joon-seok, 69, was arrested Saturday for five charges including negligence of duty and abandonment resulting in death. He ordered passengers to stay put while he and other crew members were leaving the sinking ferry. The captain was among the first to abandon the vessel.

The captain said no rescue ships arrived at that time, but this turned out to be untrue as a fishing boat arrived at 9:14 am, according to communication logs.

From 9:21 to 9:22 am, the Sewol repeatedly asked whether coast guard ships arrived at the scene. In response, the Jindo VTS urged the Sewol to let passengers wear life jackets, but the Sewol said broadcasting within the ship was not working.

The traffic center said that though the broadcasting did not work, he should go out and order crew members to get passengers to wear life jackets as much as possible, but he just repeatedly asked whether the passengers would be plucked out of the waters if they left the vessel.

Divers retrieved 18 bodies from the wreckage of the sunken ferry, which made the death toll rise to 58, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported.

At press time, 244 were still missing and the number of those rescued was unchanged at 174.

The death toll of the sunken South Korean ferry rose rapidly since Saturday as divers kept entering the hull of the submerged vessel while over 200 ships were scouring the waters.

A total of 641 divers went down into the hull from the surface along five ropes, which guide the divers against rapid currents to the underwater gate of the ferry, enabling them to enter the hull at a much faster pace.

South Korea Sunday designated two special disaster zones for Sewol to speed up state financial and other support for the families of the victims, Yonhap reported.