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 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.
But some relatives were already bracing themselves for the worst.
"Yesterday I still had some hope. The boat is big and the water
hadn't gone all the way in. Now, it's been more that 40 hours. I ask
you, what do I have left?" said Wang Feng, a 35-year-old wedding
photographer whose father was on the ship.
The ship was on an 11-day voyage upstream from the city of Nanjing,
near Shanghai, to Chongqing.
While the People's Daily said the ship passed inspections by
authorities in Chongqing last month, in 2013 it was investigated and
held by authorities due to defects, according to documents from a
local maritime watchdog.
The Nanjing Maritime Safety Administration investigated Eastern Star
as part of a safety campaign into passenger ferries and tour boats
and held the ship along with five other vessels, according to three
documents on the bureau's website.
The documents did not give any detail on the nature of the defects
related to Eastern Star but said that the issues were reported to
the Chongqing maritime safety bureau.
The search area has been expanded up to 220 km (135 miles)
downstream, state television said, suggesting that many bodies could
have been swept far away from where the ship foundered in the
rain-swollen river.
Three of the bodies were found 50 km (30 miles) away near Yueyang
city in neighboring Hunan province, state media said.
UNUSUALLY BAD WEATHER
Zou Luwang, who lives in a village near the river, said the
government had called residents to warn of extreme weather
conditions on the night the ship capsized.
"I believe those who operate the boats have expertise about this,
but the weather was unusually bad for these parts," he told Reuters.
Zhang Hui, a tour guide who survived the disaster, told the official
Xinhua news agency that it was raining so hard, water was seeping
through cabin windows, and that the ship then listed violently.
"I thought, 'this isn't right', and I told my colleague, 'I think
we're in trouble'. After I said that, the ship flipped over. It only
took 30 seconds or a minute," Zhang said.
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Li Yongjun, the captain of a freighter that passed near the Eastern
Star shortly before it capsized, told Xinhua the weather was so bad
he decided to anchor and wait out the storm.
"The visibility was terrible, like being in fog, and the rain was
interfering with the radar so you couldn't make anything out," Li
said.
He said he heard a voice from the river crying, "Help!" just after
10 p.m. (1200 ET), about 30 minutes after state media has said the
Eastern Star capsized.
"The rain was just too heavy, there was no way to mount a rescue, so
I shouted over, 'swim to the bank!'," Li said.
DISTRAUGHT RELATIVES PROTEST
The captain and chief engineer have been detained by police for
questioning. An initial investigation found the ship was not
overloaded and had enough life vests on board.
The ship overturned "within one or two minutes", Xinhua quoted the
captain as saying. He was dragged out of the water near a pier just
before midnight on Monday.
Relatives of the missing, angry at what they perceive as a lack of
information, have scuffled with officials in Shanghai. All of the
passengers on board had booked their trips through a Shanghai-based
travel agency.
About two dozen family members, some crying and others shouting
"help us", marched down streets in central Shanghai on Wednesday
towards the main government office, watched by a heavy contingent of
police.
Premier Li Keqiang, who rushed to the scene to oversee rescue
efforts, called for "regular and transparent updates" on the rescue
and investigation, and said authorities must ensure adequate
personnel and funding.
China's weather bureau said a tornado had buffeted the area where
the ship was cruising, a freak occurrence in a country where
twisters can happen but are uncommon.
Accidents of this magnitude are uncommon in China. State media said
it was the worst recorded ship disaster on the Yangtze River. In
1948, the steamship Kiangya blew up on the Huangpu river, killing
more than 1,000 people.
(Writing by Ben Blanchard; Additional reporting by Adam Jourdan and
Sue-Lin Wong in Shanghai, Engen Tham in Nanjing and Michael Martina
in Beijing; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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