Skipper swims, leaving 400 in capsized ship

The captain and chief engineer of a cruise boat that capsized in the Yangtze River were in police custody yesterday after allegedly swimming away from their stricken vessel with more than 400 mostly elderly passengers still trapped inside.

The Chinese authorities have blamed a tornado for what may prove to be China’s worst transport disaster in years.

Dozens of rescue boats and about 3000 divers and soldiers were mobilised, but by yesterday only 15 survivors had been rescued from the Eastern Star cruise ship, which capsized on Monday in 15 metres of water in Hubei province, central China.

Three of the survivors, including a 65-year-old woman, were pulled from the overturned hull yesterday, and five people were confirmed dead. The ship was carrying 456 passengers and crew. No emergency signal was sent.

Most of those on board were Chinese holidaymakers aged from 50 to 80, en route to the Three Gorges, the world’s largest hydroelectric dam. Many were believed to have been asleep when, at 9.28pm, the boat began to list. It rolled over within minutes.

The youngest passenger, according to official lists, was aged 3.

Distraught and angry, hundreds of relatives gathered at a local government office in Zhabei district, Shanghai, after Xiehe Travel, the agency that organised the trip, shut its doors yesterday.

Some turned their anger on the local authorities.

‘‘The government is playing with us,’’ complained Wang Zejun, whose 65-year-old father, Wang Yongli, is among the missing.

Others wept as Wang spoke yesterday afternoon.

‘‘We’re still waiting for information.

‘‘There is no official response regarding the safety of our relatives – we’re so worried about them,’’ he said.

Many families were refusing to leave the office until officials addressed them, he said.

Zhang Hui, a tour guide who managed to drift to safety despite being unable to swim, told Chinese state media that it had been raining so hard that water had begun to pour through the windows on the ship.

Some passengers had left their cabins to go to a more central part of the ship, but the vessel had then lurched in different directions.

He had 30 seconds, he said, to grab a lifejacket before the ship overturned and he found himself in the river. ‘‘Wave after wave crashed over me,’’ he said.

‘‘The raindrops hitting my face felt like hailstones.’’

There are fears of an impending cover-up of the facts surrounding the disaster as the authorities in China have a long record of minimising the negative impact of news events, and silencing criticism.

Officials enforced a cordoned off disaster site in Jianli county, near Jingzhou city, ensuring that only state media covered the rescue efforts first-hand.

The Jingzhou weather bureau had warned of heavy rain and thunder about an hour before the accident.