[gatagato]

Five people are dead and hundreds are missing after a ship carrying more than 450 people capsized on the Yangtze River in China's Hubei province: Only 12 people have been rescued so far.



June 2, 2015: Rescue workers stand on a capsized ship, center, on the Yangtze River in central China's Hubei province. The small cruise ship sank overnight in China's Yangtze River during a storm, leaving nearly 450 people missing, state media said Tuesday.

The ship is floating upside down in a wide stretch of river - state media said rescuers tapping the hull had heard calls for help from inside.
The boat reportedly did not send out an SOS signal before going down.
Media reports say the alarm was raised by several people who had swum to shore and alerted the police.

Only about 12 people have been rescued so far, and some with minor injuries have been taken to hospital, said state media. Rescue work has been hampered by strong winds and heavy rain.
The BBC's Jo Floto in Beijing says that China has not seen such a disaster on such a scale for a long time.
The government has exerted huge control over information coming out from the scene, with local journalists stopped from getting close to the scene, he adds.

Captain detained
Thousands of soldiers and rescue personnel have been deployed, and a high-powered salvage ship is on the way to pull the boat upright, reported China Central Television (CCTV).

The state broadcaster said on its Weibo microblog account that divers had knocked on the hull underwater and had heard cries of help from within. It said later that rescuers above water had established contact with those trapped inside.
The captain and the chief engineer, who were both rescued after more than an hour in the water, have reportedly been detained by police.
They were quoted earlier as saying that the boat had been caught in a cyclone and sank within minutes, while many people were asleep.
Premier Li Keqiang, who is travelling to Hubei province, has ordered a team from the state council to lead the search and rescue operation, said Xinhua.

'Sank in minutes'
The four-tier Dongfangzhixing - or Eastern Star - had been carrying 405 Chinese passengers, five travel agency employees and 47 crew.
It is 76m long and weighs 2,200 tons, and could accommodate a maximum of 534 people.

It was travelling from the eastern city of Nanjing to Chongqing in the south-west - a journey of at least 1,500km (930 miles) - when it sank in the Damazhou section of the Yangtze in Jianli county, Hubei, at about 21:30 local time on Monday evening (13:30 GMT).
The water there is about 15m (50ft) deep. It took at least two and a half hours for rescuers to reach the boat.
CCTV said the vessel was owned by the Chongqing Eastern Shipping Corporation which runs tours to the scenic Three Gorges river canyon area along the Yangtze river.
Most of those on board were tourists aged around 50 to 80 on a tour organised by Shanghai company Xiehe Travel.

Anxious relatives in Shanghai have gathered outside the company's office, which remains shut. They told reporters that calls to their loved ones on board were not getting through.
Sina News reported that a young man was seen sobbing by the door, saying: "Mum and Dad I was wrong, I shouldn't have let you go off on your holiday."

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-32969861
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/bo...angtze-n368106

State television showed rescuers using hammers to knock on the hull and listen out for survivors


Local media said the rescue attempt had been hampered by rainy weather


Small boats have been deployed on the river to search for survivors


The boat went down in a popular cruise area of the river


The travel company's office remained shut on Tuesday

[Berserk]

Hopefully they get it upright asap...
Have been salvaging some ships myself as part of my work.. but normaly they where empty of people.
But even if like 100 people survived inside they gonna die soon from Co2 poisoning and lack of oxygen...
It should be beter the get some fresh air inside trough compressors, divers could bring the air hoses inside..
Gives a bit extra floating capacity as well

[winvens]

[PTSD Is My Life]

Boats...storms and dark swirling water...my one true dislike...I don't know where the feeling comes from but its deep deep inside me and always has been. I hope they get air inside soon as those people are not going to last too long on what's in there.

[William May]

I took a tour boat from Shanghai up to ChongChing (sp?) a few years ago. There were probably 300 on our boat. It was a very nice tour. But the Yangtze is a VERY dirty river, with a lot of pollution in it. It's also very murky. I scuba dive as a hobby, and I estimated the visibility to be less than 1 foot under the water. The boats are about the size of a large U.S. car ferry. Nearly all the cabins have windows and face the outside. Maybe this one had some inside cabins. But old people being plunged into murky water, at night, while you are half asleep, with the lights all out, and I can guarantee you that most of the people died within 60 seconds. The survivors are probably engine room crew, trapped in the hull.

[gatagato]

***UPDATE***

Death toll jumps to 331 in Yangtze River capsizing

The Eastern Star is upright once again, looking almost normal with its bottom resting on the water and its deck and cabins clear above it.

The ship's positioning Friday was a step forward in the dayslong nightmare playing out on a section of the Yangtze River that flows through Hubei province. It means answers should be easier to come by as to why the Eastern Star capsized Monday night and what can be done to prevent similar tragedies in the future.

It also means closure could be coming soon to hundreds of families.

At least 396 bodies had been recovered by Saturday, according to Chinese state media. There are 46 people still unaccounted for.

Of the 456 people on board, 14 survived. But rescuers have had no luck since Tuesday, when a 21-year-old sailor and 65-year-old woman were plucked from the water.

The chances of more miracles have dwindled with each passing day. And the salvage process has begun.


Scores of ships, thousands of soldiers involved

That process involved huge floating cranes that set up alongside the overturned river cruise ship, dropped cables and hooks into the water, rolled the ship upright and raised it to the surface. About 50 divers took part overnight Thursday by tying slings around the 2,200-ton vessel, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.

State-run CCTV News tweeted pictures of the Eastern Star after this happened Friday. Parts of its top level looked smashed, but the other levels appeared largely intact. By draining the ship, the idea is that it could again float on its own.

Meanwhile, rescuers continue their work. After going through the submerged, capsized ship for three days, they'll now theoretically be able to walk its decks and open spaces.

The idea is to go cabin by cabin, looking for people who may have, by chance, survived in a cranny inside -- and for the many who most certainly did not. It's all part of a huge operation involving nearly 150 other ships, 59 machines, over 3,400 Chinese troops and 1,700 paramilitary personnel, Xinhua said.

In addition to the human toll, there's an environmental toll from oil leaked into the Yangtze River, Transport Ministry spokesman Xu Chengguang said.

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/05/as...-ship-sinking/