Rescuers searched a sunken cruise ship in the Yangtze River yesterday for more than 400 missing people, many of them elderly, but hopes of finding more survivors were fading in what could be China’s worst shipping disaster in almost 70 years.
State television showed rescuers, some standing gingerly on the upturned hull of the Eastern Star, and scores of divers working through the night.
Only 14 people, including the ship’s captain, have been found alive since the ship capsized in a freak tornado on Monday night with 456 people on board. Just 19 bodies have been recovered.
Rescuers have not slackened off, even though about 200 divers face difficulties such as cabin doors blocked by tables and beds. There is also the fear that rashly cutting holes in the hull could burst air pockets keeping people alive.
“Although there’s lots of work to do, saving people is still being put first,” Transport Ministry spokesman Xu Chengguang told reporters.
State television showed a rain-soaked Premier Li Keqiang, who is on the scene overseeing rescue efforts, bowing in respect to two bodies laid out on the deck of a boat covered in sheets.
The ship was on an 11-day voyage upstream from the city of Nanjing, near Shanghai, to Chongqing.
The search area has been expanded up to 220 km (135 miles) downstream suggesting that bodies could have been swept far away from where the ship foundered.
Three of the bodies were found 50 km (30 miles) away near Yueyang city in neighbouring Hunan province, state media said.