Hundreds missing in cruise ship sinking
• As the Eastern Star cruise ship listed heavily amid pounding rain on the Yangtze River, tour guide Zhang Hui told a colleague, “Looks like we are in trouble.”
The vessel capsized in a storm Monday night with 458 people aboard, touching off a frantic rescue effort. At least 15 people were brought to safety, including three pulled from the overturned hull Tuesday, and five people were confirmed dead, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
The vessel was carrying mostly elderly tourists from Nanjing to Chongqing, southwestern China, when it overturned in Hubei province.
Divers rescued a 65-yearold woman and, later, two men who had been trapped.
“We will do everything we can to rescue everyone trapped in there, no matter if they’re still alive or not, and we will treat them as our own families,” Hubei military region commander Chen Shoumin said Tuesday at a news conference shown on state broadcaster CCTV.
The survivors included the ship’s captain and chief engineer, who were taken into custody by police.
Relatives who gathered in Shanghai, where many of the tourists started their journey by bus, questioned whether the captain did enough to ensure the passengers’ safety and demanded answers.
The two officers said the four-level Eastern Star sank quickly after being caught in what they described as a cyclone, Xinhua reported.
Zhang, 43, said from his hospital bed he grabbed a lifejacket with seconds to spare
That old woman had a very strong will and learned (scuba) very fast
as the ship listed in the storm, sending bottles rolling off tables before suddenly turning all the way over.
He said he drifted in the Yangtze all night despite not being able to swim, reaching shore as dawn approached.
“The raindrops hitting my face felt like hailstones,” he said. “‘Just hang in there a little longer,’ I told myself.”
Some s ur vi v ors swam ashore, but others were rescued after search teams climbed on the upside-down hull and heard those inside yelling for help, more than 12 hours after the ship overturned.
The 65-year-old woman was rescued by divers who took an extra breathing apparatus up into the bowels of the ship and spent about five minutes teaching her how to use it before bringing her out to safety.
“That old woman had a very strong will and learned very fast, and after 20 minutes she surfaced to the water and was rescued,” Chen said.
Huang Yan, 49, an accountant in Shanghai, wept as she said she believes her husband, 49, and his father, who is in his 70s, were aboard.
“Why did the captain leave the ship while the passengers were still missing?” Huang shouted. “We want the government to release the name list to see who was on the boat.”