Three deceased passengers, suspected to be the family of a missing ten-year-old girl named Cho Yu-na, were found inside a vehicle recovered from waters off the coast of southwestern Wando County in South Jeolla Province.

According to the local police and the Coast Guard on Wednesday, the bodies of three people were confirmed to be inside the vehicle after it was pulled out of the ocean at around 12:20 p.m.

The police suspect that the three people are Yu-na and her parents, who were reported missing by the girl's school last week after she failed to return from a planned month-long stay on the southernmost Jeju Island.

Authorities intend to identify the bodies through fingerprint verification and analyses of articles left inside the car.

The vehicle, of which the plate number, model and production year matched that of the Cho family's, was discovered on Tuesday afternoon in waters some 80 meters away from a seawall at Songgok Port.