Beijing: A cruise ship carrying 458 people, mostly elderly, capsized due to a cyclone in Asia’s longest river Yangtze in China’s Hubei province as rescuers today searched for survivors with hundreds missing and at least five dead in one of the country’s worst shipping tragedies.
The four-storey Eastern Star ship, which left the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing at 1:15 PM (local time) on Thursday bound for Chongqing Municipality on the upper reaches of the river, sank “within one or two minutes” of being caught in freak weather in Jianli, according to the ship’s captain and chief engineer who survived the incident on Monday night.
The ship’s captain and chief engineer were later arrested pending investigation. Fourteen people have been rescued so far and another five confirmed dead while 439 were missing after the cruise ship carrying 458 people sank in the 6,300 km-long Yangtze River overnight, state-run CCTV reported.
In a last ditch effort, Chinese government has ordered pumping of oxygen into the hull of the overturned vessel after rescuers heard tapping sounds, raising hopes of pulling out more survivors alive. State television showed the overturned hull of the massive ship as rescuers were seen trying to hear tapping sounds to locate people caught up in areas where water had not entered.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered a working team of the State Council to rush to the site to guide search and rescue efforts, following which Premier Li Keqiang rushed to the area. Li ordered the rescue teams to start pumping oxygen into the hull after the tapping sounds were heard.
The exact cause of the sinking was not immediately clear, but the captain and chief engineer both reportedly said it had been caught in a “cyclone”. Divers rescued a woman aged 65 from inside the ship past midnight. An 80-year-old woman was rescued this afternoon. The ages of those on board the Eastern Star range from 3 to 83 years, with most in their 60s and 70s. Three survivors, aged 37, 42 and 50 respectively were being treated at a Hubei hospital, state-run Xinhua news agency reported. Wang Yangsheng, senior official with the Yueyang Maritime Rescue Center, said the incident happened, “so fast that the captain did not even have the time to send out a distress signal” after the 76-metre ship was hit by a high-power cyclone.
There were 406 passengers, five tour guides and 47 crew on board the ship. Police, maritime authorities and fire departments have dispatched a total of 36 ships to the scene and another 117 boats have joined the rescue operation. More than 1,840 soldiers, 1,600 police and 1,000 civilians have been mobilised but bad weather was hampering rescue efforts.
More than 400 people boarded in Nanjing, including more than 100 tourists with state-owned Shanghai Xiehe Travel Agency. Most of those on board are from Shanghai and neighbouring Jiangsu Province. Families this morning gathered at the dock where the ship departed last week, waiting anxiously for news of their loved ones.
The ship has been in service for nearly 20 years and can carry up to 534 people. It is one of five luxury vessels operated by the state-owned Chongqing Wanzhou Dongfang Shipping Company. Waterways officials in Chongqing have no record of company involvement in any previous sinking. The maritime rescue centre in Yueyang in neighbouring Hunan Province, received an alarm call from the crew of another boat who saw two people in the water at 10:10 PM last night. The centre immediately sent a patrol boat and the two were picked up at 11:51 PM. One of the survivors said he was the captain of the Eastern Star.
Desperate relatives who gathered at the Xiehe Travel agency in Shanghai found it was closed. Wailing relatives were seen grieving for the loved ones at the closed doors of the travel office. A number of them said no information has been provided so far by the travel agency. Rescuers say the scenario resembled the sinking of the MV Sewol which sank with 476 passengers last year en route from Incheon to Jeju. Its passengers were mostly secondary school students. Rescue efforts were being hampered by rains. The China Central Meteorological Station said most of the Yangtze will be subject to downpours for the next 10 days, with heavy rain expected where the search is underway. An investigation has found that the ship was not overloaded and was equipped with sufficient life jackets. (PTI)
All those rescued were wearing life jackets, media reports said. Most of the passengers retired for the night when the incident took place. PTI KJV ASK AKJ ASK 06021507
