About 400 people are reportedly missing 20 hours after their tourist ship capsized in stormy weather on China’s Yangtze River last night.
Official Xinhua news agency reported that dozen of survivors were rescued from the four-decked ship.
Some passengers of Dongfangzhixing (Eastern Star), including a 65-year-old woman pulled from under the hull.
The local report says five people were confirmed died in the incident.
While rescue efforts are on-going; fighting bad weather to rescue many of the missing passengers who are mostly elderly tourists ‘’Rescuers who climbed on the hull of the partially submerged vessel reported hearing people calling for help around 12 hours after it overturned at 9:38 p.m. local time (9:38 a.m. ET Monday’’ CCTV news states.
The People’s Daily reported that the tourists, aged 50 to 80, are on a tour organised by a Shanghai tour group, along with 47 crew members and five tour guides.
State radio reported that the ship went over in about two minutes and no distress call had been issued. Seven people swam to shore to raise the alarm, media said.
Fishing boats were among the dozens of vessels helping in the search and rescue and more than 1,000 police with 40 inflatable boats had also been sent.
Hundreds Still Missing In China Ship Mishap
The Eastern Star, which has the capacity to carry more than 500 people, was heading to southwestern Chongqing city from Nanjing, capital of the eastern province of Jiangsu. It sank at around 9:28 p.m. yesterday in the Jianli section of the river.
Wang Jianhua, its Vice General Manager, said it had never suffered an incident of this magnitude since it started operation in 1981.
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