dredging up bad memories

The big news coming out of South Korea is that the Chinese company Shanghai Salvage has raised the remains of the Sewol, the ferry that infamously sank in 2014, killing around 300 people, most of whom were young students. Nine people are still listed as missing from that horrible incident; there may be some hope that their remains will be found in the ship, but I'm not optimistic. The disaster occurred in April, so it's been almost three years, which is plenty of time for a body to disintegrate, especially underwater, with abundant sea life. If remains are found, though, I suppose such a finding might provide a sense of closure, however painful, for families who have waited all this time to learn the fates of their loved ones.

Personally, I'm curious as to why Korea hired out to China to get this salvage done. Does Korea not have its own equipment? Would it have been too expensive for Korea to do its own salvage? This older article talks about the hiring of Shanghai Salvage while skirting the reasons why a Chinese firm was hired in the first place. Interestingly, the article says the salvage company will "give top priority to the complete recovery of the remains of the nine missing passengers." I wish the salvage crew good luck with that.

UPDATE: a possible answer to my question can be found in this article, which notes that who would conduct the salvage was determined through a bidding process that included Korean salvage companies. Judgment criteria included the salvage tech on offer and the salvage company's asking price. Conclusion: this is nothing for me to fret about.