A steamboat with 153 passengers on board collided with a barge on Friday when sailing on the Yangtze River in the territorial water of southwest China's Chongqing Municipality. One passenger is dead, one missing and four others are wounded.

The liner, bounded for Yichang, was bumped by a barge travelling without a headlight against the current, an official from the Chongqing Marine Time Safety Administration said, as quoted in the local newspaper Chongqing Economic Times.

The accident happened around one o'clock on Friday morning, hours after the ship set off into the night. The barge fled under the cover of darkness, the report said.

The marine police came to rescue upon receiving the emergency call. The damaged ship was escorted to the nearest harbor.

The wounded passengers were rushed to hospital. A 64 old woman whose legs were badly hurt died due to loss of blood. She was in the most heavily hit cabin when the accident occurred.

The rest of the passengers were transferred to another liner. The local marine department is still searching for the missing passenger and the fled barge.

(CRI November 4, 2007)