Rescue efforts continued into Wednesday as a total 14 survivors were rescued from the Eastern Star, the cruise ship carrying 456 that sank Monday night in China's Yangtze River.
So far, 19 bodies have been recovered, leaving more than 420 people unaccounted for, most of whom are by now feared dead.
The boat, which departed from Nanjing in eastern China and was bound for Chongqing in southwest China, was caught in a cyclone and capsized at around 9:28 pm Monday in a section of the Yangtze River in Jianli county, Hubei Province.
Chinese dailyBeijing Evening News featured the country's Premier Li Keqiang on its Tuesday night front page. Keqiang, speaking from the scene of the accident, called for a transparent investigation into the shipwreck and promised that more divers and rescue teams would be dispatched on site.
Although more than 2,000 rescue workers have been sent since Monday night, they lack professional rescuing equipment. A firefighter captain told the press that they arrived at 5 a.m. Tuesday morning but have just been standing by for a long time without being able to do much.
Chinese media offers limited updates about the development of the rescuing operations. Most of the passengers were retired elderly on a sightseeing tour from all over China.
Zhang Hui, a rescued 43-year-old tourist guide, told news agency Xinhua: "It was just after 9 pm when big wind and rain suddenly arrived, together with thunder and lightning. Even with the windows shut the rain started to pour in. Around 9:20 pm when I was walking back from the office at the left wing of the ship to my bedroom at the right wing, the boat suddenly tilted. Just after that I told my colleague: "We are in big trouble, the ship overturned." It all went really fast. I had time only to grab a life jacket and climb out of the window."
ABOUT THE SOURCE: Beijing Evening News is a Beijing-based, Chinese-language newspaper. It was founded in 1958.
