Rescuers on Wednesday cut into the hull of a capsized Chinese cruise ship in a desperate attempt to reach more than 410 people believed to still be trapped two days after the tragedy.
The Eastern Star overturned in a storm on the Yangtze River on Monday — but only 14 people had been found by Wednesday, along with 29 bodies.
“The ship sank in a very short time frame so there could still be air trapped in the hull,” Li Qixiu of the Naval University of Engineering told Chinese state media agency Xinhua, hoping more survivors could be found.
More than 200 divers searched the vessel while it was supported by cranes to prevent it from sinking further, Li said. More than 110 vessels were deployed to the scene, China Daily reported.
The 250-foot-long, shallow-draft ship — which was carrying 456 mostly elderly people on a cruise from Nanjing to the southwestern city of Chongqing — ran into bad weather, sank in seconds and drifted almost two miles.
The captain and chief engineer told police the ship was caught in a freak storm, which authorities called a cyclone with winds up to 80 mph. The Eastern Star wasn’t designed to withstand winds as heavy as an ocean-going ship.
“Under the special circumstance of cyclone, the pressure on the one side of the boat went beyond the standard it was designed for, resulting in the overturning of the boat,” said Zhong Shoudao, president of the Chongqing Boat Design Institute.
“The boat had life jackets and lifeboats, but due to the sudden capsizing, there was not enough time for people to put on lifejackets or for the signals to be sent out,” Zhong said.
The tragedy is on track to become China’s deadliest maritime disaster in 70 years.
Divers battled low visibility in the murky waters as they scoured the cabins Wednesday — finding about 20 bodies, authorities said.
Prime Minister Li Keqiang bowed to victims’ bodies in heavy rain Wednesday as he vowed to keep searching despite the difficult conditions, China Daily reported.
“As long as there is the slightest hope, we must go all out to find the missing,” he told Xinhua.
Meanwhile, questions have been raised about the speed at which rescue efforts were launched.
A newspaper in Hubei obtained a document that appears to show that the rescue operation was only started almost two-and-a-half hours after the capsizing, BBC reported.
And Central Propaganda Department has instructed editors not to send reporters to the river — and to use only the information from Xinhua and China Central TV.
Officials provided little information to the media Wednesday and took no questions.
Meanwhile, angry and frustrated relatives clashed with cops outside a government building in Shanghai, China’s commercial hub.
“The police first formed a human wall and didn’t let us in. Then the relatives got excited and started to shout. Some policemen hit people,” said one woman whose mother was on the ship.
Another distraught woman, whose 7-year-old daughter was on the ship with her grandparents, said families needed more information.
“We need to go to the site. That’s our common appeal,” she said.
Tour guide Zhang Hui, 43, told Xinhua he had only “30 seconds to grab a life jacket.”
The Eastern Star and five other Yangtze cruise ships were held after being cited for safety violations in 2013, according to the Nanjing Maritime Bureau, which provided no details.
The Eastern Star was owned by the Chongqing Eastern Shipping Corp., which could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
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