Rescuers work on the capsized ship, center, on the Yangtze River in China＇s Hubei province, June 3, 2015.
BEIJING—
Hopes are dimming in China that divers will find more survivors trapped inside the ship that capsized Monday evening on the Yangtze River during a violent storm.
China has mounted a huge rescue operation, bringing in large dredgers and deploying nearly 200 divers to the site to help with the effort, as authorities recovered more bodies Wednesday from the submerged Eastern Star ship, raising the confirmed death toll to 26.
The number of survivors remained steady at 14 with more than 400 still missing.
Officials said poor visibility underwater and persistent rains continue to make the rescue effort challenging. Inside the 76.5 meter (250-foot) ship, divers reported that many doors were obstructed by wreckage, frustrating search efforts.
Despite this, authorities said they are still determined to find survivors.
Possible survivors still priority
Transportation Ministry spokesman Xu Chengguang said as there is a sliver of hope of finding passengers, officials will continue to focus on rescue-and-recovery efforts.
The ship’s captain and chief engineer are among the survivors and the two are currently in police custody.
It was not immediately clear if they had provided any new details regarding the possible cause of the accident. Both the captain and chief engineer said a tornado capsized the vessel.
At a briefing on the accident Wednesday, Wuhan meteorological station chief Wu Cuihong said, after reviewing and compiling radar and other data, meteorologists confirmed a tornado had occurred near the accident site late Monday. Wu said the tornado lasted about 15 to 20 minutes and had winds of more than 118 kph.
Wu and others who spoke with the media Wednesday did not take questions. It was not immediately clear that if the storm had lasted that long, why there were not other reports of significant damage.
Meanwhile, Ministry of Transportation spokesperson Zhong Shoudao said Wednesday that the ship was designed to navigate inland waterways.
"The river ships tend to have a lower standard on wind-resistance and wave-resistance than ocean ships,＇＇ he said. "If the force of the blowing wind was more than the ship could withstand, then it would have capsized."
Elderly passengers
Most of the passengers aboard the Eastern Star were between the ages of 60 and 80.
According to Chinese state media accounts from survivors, the ship capsized in about two minutes, giving passengers very little time to react.
The Eastern Star ferry was built more than 20 years ago and, according to the Communist Party’s People’s Daily, it passed inspections by authorities in Chongqing last month.
But according to documents on the website of the Nanjing Maritime Safety Administration, the Eastern Star was investigated in 2013 during a safety campaign, Reuters news agency reported.
The report gave no details about the nature of the problems but said the defects were reported to Chongqing maritime officials.
The capsizing of the multi-decked Eastern Star in the Yangtze River is on track to become the country＇s deadliest maritime disaster in seven decades, while Chinese state media said the accident is the worst disaster to have ever occurred on the Yangtze. |
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