The 156th body was found in the waters Wednesday where the Sewol ferry sank in Jindo, South Korea last week.

As of Wednesday, 150 people are still missing, and relatives of those lost are pressing the government to finish the recovery mission, the Associated Press reports. Yet, the recovery is becoming more complicated, as officials say divers must rip down cabin walls to recover more victims.

The government is deciding when to bring in cranes to raise the vessel out of the water. They have been apprehensive to do so out of hope that some air pockets could be keeping some people alive, but some relatives of those lost believe hope is futile.

"Now we think we have to deal with this realistically," said Pyun Yong-gi, whose 17-year-old daughter is among those missing.

"We don't want the bodies to decay further, so we want them to pull out the bodies as quickly as they can," Pyun said on Jindo island, the place where recovered bodies are taken for family members to identify.

But many families are still clinging onto desperate hope, and many do not want to think about "salvaging" a loved one's body.

The number of corpses recovered rose over the weekend, with divers fighting low visibility and strong water currents.

Koh Myung-seck, the spokesman for the government's emergency task force, said the recovery effort is becoming more difficult.

"The lounge is one big open space, so once in it we got our search done straight away. But in the case of the cabins, we will have to break down the walls in between because they are all compartments," Koh said.

"Even if there is only one survivor," he added, "our government will do its best to rescue that person, and then we will salvage the ferry."

Some are acknowledging that divers have to work fast to recover the dead, resigning themselves to the reality that most have already perished.

"I've seen the bodies and they are starting to smell. It inflicts a new wound for the parents to see the bodies decomposed," Pyun said.

Pyun and other families told the government that Thursday is the deadline to recover the bodies, although he admits there is no way to enforce said deadline.

The students in the wreck, which occurred April 16, are mostly students from a high school in Ansan, an area near Seoul, South Korea. More than three-quarters of the 323 students are missing or dead, while almost two-thirds of the other 153 people on board have survived.

Oh Sang-yoon of the task force center said there is an overflow of bodies at local funeral homes, so the center "is taking measures to accommodate additional bodies by placing mortuary refrigerators at the funeral halls in Ansan," and directing families to funeral homes in nearby cities.

Twenty-two of the 29 members of the ferry's crew survived, and 11 of the crew members, including Capt. Lee Joon-seok, have been detained or arrested in connection with the investigation into the ferry's capsize.

Officials say an analysis of the photos and video show that the captain and other arrested crew members didn't rescue passengers, even though it was their duty to do so. The crew members stayed in the ship's steering or engine room before fleeing the ship.

The captain initially told passengers to stay put in their cabins, and waited half an hour to announce an evacuation order. He said he waited because the current was strong and very cold, but maritime experts said he should have ordered passengers to the deck, where they would have had a greater chance of survival.

It was also a passenger, not a crew member, who first alerted authorities that the boat was in danger of capsizing.

The emergency call was made at 8:52 a.m. last Wednesday, and the ferry made an emergency call three minutes later.

Yonhap news agency reported that the first emergency caller was a student who remains missing.

The cause of the tragedy is not yet known, but investigators are looking into factors like ocean currents, wind, freight, and modifications made to the ship, as well as the fact that it turned before it began list, or lean to one side.

A maritime professor who spoke with the Sewol's third mate said he suspects that an issue with the steering gear caused the ferry to sink.