Ferry mission shifts to recovery of bodies
TOP-DECK cabins with smashed blue roofs jutted out of gray water yesterday after the capsized Eastern Star river cruiser was righted to ease the search for more than 340 people still missing.
In the latest count, 97 bodies had been found.
Crews worked on draining water from the ship, which was still mostly submerged in the Yangtze River.
Chinese authorities had attributed the accident on Monday night to sudden high winds just before 9.30pm, but also had placed the surviving captain and first engineer under police custody.
Passengers’ relatives had raised questions about whether or not the river cruiser should have continued on after a storm started and despite a weather warning broad- cast earlier in the evening.
In all, 14 people survived the accident in Hubei province near Jianli county, including three pulled by divers from air pockets in the overturned boat on Tuesday after rescuers tapped the hull and heard responding yells from inside.
The boat was righted yesterday morning with cranes after 50 divers worked overnight to attach chains to it, Transportation Ministry spokesman Xu Chengguang said, adding that disaster teams would now focus on draining off water, and finding and identifying bodies.
Divers also found more bodies overnight, bringing the death toll to 97, Xu said.
In a sign of potential unrest among the hundreds of relatives who have descended on the small community of Jianli, one distraught family member burst into a gathering of journalists to complain about the treatment and demand an investigation into possible human error.
‘‘All the emphasis is on a natural disaster . . . but we think that this is unjust,’’ said Xia Yunchen, a 70-year-old university lecturer. ‘‘Apart from natural disaster were there other causes? Is this not rational to ask?’’
Xia, whose older brother Xia Qinchen, from the eastern coastal city of Qingdao, was a passenger, demanded that relatives be allowed to view their loved ones’ bodies before they were cremated.
In past disasters, authorities had cremated bodies and delivered ashes to the victims’ families without letting them see them, in keeping with the tight management of the aftermath of natural disasters and fears of spiraling unrest.
‘‘Why do you view the common people as your enemies?’’ Xia cried out. ‘‘There’s no human feeling, can’t we change this habit?’’
Many of the more than 450 people on the multi-decked, 77-metre-long Eastern Star were reported to be retirees taking in the scenic vistas of the Yangtze.
With 97 confirmed dead and more than 340 missing, the capsizing is likely to become China’s deadliest boat disaster in seven decades.
Access to the site had been blocked by police and paramilitary troops stationed along the Yangtze embankment, and Chinese authorities had tightly controlled media coverage.
Records show the capsized ship was cited for safety violations during an inspection in 2013, according to a report on Nanjing’s Maritime Safety website, which did not specify the violations.
The shallow-draft boat, which was not designed to withstand winds as heavy as an ocean-going cruise ship can, overturned in what Chinese weather authorities had called a cyclone, with winds up to 130kmh.
China’s deadliest maritime disaster in recent decades struck the Dashun ferry, which caught fire and capsized off Shandong province in 1999, killing about 280 people.
The Eastern Star disaster could become the country’s worst since the sinking of the SS Kiangya off Shanghai in 1948, which is believed to have killed anywhere from 2750 to nearly 4000 people.