Survivors pulled from capsized ship

Rescuers have pulled six survivors to safety after hearing cries for help from inside a capsized cruise ship that went down overnight in a storm on China’s Yangtze River, state broadcaster CCTV said.

Survivors pulled from capsized ship

Rescuers have pulled six survivors to safety after hearing cries for help from inside a capsized cruise ship that went down overnight in a storm on China’s Yangtze River, state broadcaster CCTV said.

There were 458 people on board the vessel, most of them elderly.

At least other 12 people are known to have survived, including the captain and chief engineer, and five people were confirmed dead in the accident which happened during a cruise from Nanjing to the south-western city of Chongqing, the broadcaster said.

Search teams heard people calling out from within the partially submerged ship when they climbed aboard the upside-down hull, CCTV reported more than 12 hours after the ship went down in Hubei Province at 9.38pm last night local time.

Footage from the broadcaster showed rescuers in orange life vests, with one of them lying down tapping a hammer and listening for a response, then gesturing downwards.

Divers later pulled out at least one survivor, an 85-year-old woman, from inside the overturned hull, CCTV said.

Then, an additional five people were reported to have been saved, though no details were given on those rescues, which brought the total number people who reached safety to 18. Many of the initial survivors swam ashore.

The broadcaster said five people were confirmed dead.

The overturned ship had drifted almost 2 miles (3km) downstream before coming to rest close to the river shore, where choppy waters made the rescue difficult.

The fact that the capsized ship drifted downstream was a good sign for rescuers because it meant there was enough air inside to give it buoyancy, and could mean there are enough air pockets for survivors to breathe, said Chi-Mo Park, a professor of naval architecture and ocean engineering at South Korea’s Ulsan University.

“It all depends how much space there is inside the vessel,” he said.

The official Xinhua News Agency quoted the captain and chief engineer as saying the ship sank quickly after being caught in a cyclone. The Communist Party-run People’s Daily said the ship sank within two minutes. CCTV said the two men were in police custody.

CCTV said the four-level ship had been carrying 406 Chinese passengers, five travel agency employees and 47 crew members. The broadcaster said most of the passengers were aged between 50 and 80.

Many of the ships’ passengers started out in Shanghai, taking a bus to Nanjing for the departure to Chongqing. Relatives of passengers gathered in Shanghai at a travel agency that had booked many of the trips, and they later headed to a government office to try to get more information about the accident.

Huang Yan, 49, an accountant in Shanghai, wept as she told a reporter that she believed that her husband, 49, and his father, who is in his 70s, were on board. But she said she could not be sure because she had not yet seen an official passenger list.

“Why did the captain leave the ship while the passengers were still missing?” Ms Yan shouted. “We want the government to release the name list to see who was on the boat.”

A group of about a dozen retirees from a Shanghai bus company were on the trip, said a woman who identified herself only by her surname, Chen. Among them, she said, were her elder sister and her elder sister’s husband, both 60, and their six-year-old granddaughter.

“This group has travelled together a lot, but only on short trips. This is the first time they travelled for a long trip,” Chen said.

The ship sank in the Damazhou waterway section, where the river is 50ft (15m) deep, and drifted almost 2 miles (3km). The Yangtze is the world’s third-longest river and sometimes floods during the summer monsoon season.

Several rescue ships were searching the waters, and divers had been deployed. The broadcaster said rescue personnel were trying to determine whether they could right the sunken ship.

More than 50 boats and 3,000 people were involved in search efforts.

The Eastern Star was 251ft (76.5m) long and 36ft (11m) wide and was capable of carrying a maximum of 534 people, CCTV reported. It is owned by the Chongqing Eastern Shipping Corp, which focuses on tourism routes in the popular Three Gorges river canyon region. The company could not be reached for comment.

CCTV reported that 6in (150mm) of rain had fallen in the region over the past 24 hours. Local media reported that winds reached 80mph (130kph) during the accident.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang is reported to be traveling to the accident site. Xinhua reported that President Xi Jinping had ordered a work team of the State Council, the country’s Cabinet, to rush to the site to guide the rescue work.

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