14 rescued in Yangtze shipwreck, 424 remain missing
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E-mail Xinhua, June 3, 2015
By 11:30 am Wednesday, 14 people have been rescued, 18 are confirmed dead and 424 remain missing after a passenger ship carrying 456 people capsized in China's Yangtze River on Monday.
![Premier Li Keqiang (C) bows before bodies of those who died in the worst recorded ship disaster on the Yangtze River. [Provided to chinadaily.com.cn]](http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20150603/7427ea210acc16d8ba6d3a.jpg "Premier Li Keqiang (C) bows before bodies of those who died in the worst recorded ship disaster on the Yangtze River. [Provided to chinadaily.com.cn]") |
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Premier Li Keqiang (C) bows before bodies of those who died in the worst recorded ship disaster on the Yangtze River. [Provided to chinadaily.com.cn] |
The capsized ship will be cut after 3:30 pm this afternoon and rescuers will enter the cabins to conduct further search, Modern Express reported. The cutting is estimated to take about an hour. But the internal pressure will add difficulty to the work. Ambulances have arrived at the site.
The search-and-rescue operation is divided into three groups: the first is responsible for cutting the bottom of the ship which emerged from water; the second will focus on underwater search; and the third will search along the river.
More than 100 divers are searching the missings underwater while some others are on standby ashore, Ministry of Transport said.
Rainfalls are expected at the site today and precautions should be taken, according to the national observatory.
The Eastern Star sank "within one or two minutes" of being caught in a tornado in Jianli, central Hubei Province, on Monday night, according to the ship's captain and chief engineer, who both survived the incident.
The Changjiang (Yangtze) River Administration of Navigational Affairs, under the Ministry of Transport, said that as of 9 p.m., 12 people had been rescued from the water, and another two were rescued from the wreckage.
Divers are combing the compartments for survivors, while the search on the river has expanded to 150 km downstream of the site and will continue to 220 km, said Li Jiang, vice head of the administration.
A team of 4,000, including police, fire fighters and soldiers from the Chinese Navy, are involved in the rescue mission.
Carrying mostly elderly tourists, the ship left the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing on May 28 for Chongqing Municipality on the upper reaches of China's longest river.
The Ministry of Transport said there were 456 people onboard, including 405 passengers, 46 crew and five tour guides.
Most of the passengers were from Shanghai and its neighboring province Jiangsu, aged between 3 and 83. The majority were in their 60s and 70s.
The ship's captain and chief engineer are in police custody.
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