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Survivor: Chinese passenger ship capsized quickly during violent storm
02-06-2015 18:01
The ship began tilting, Zhang told the agency, reaching an angle of 45 degrees at one point. Small bottles rolled off the table in his cabin.
Jianli County, China (CNN) Most of the passengers on the Eastern Star cruise ship had gone to bed. A violent storm struck and rain pounded the windows with such force that water seeped into the cabins, survivor Zhang Hui told Xinhau, China's state-run news agency.
The ship began tilting, Zhang told the agency, reaching an angle of 45 degrees at one point. Small bottles rolled off the table in his cabin.
"Looks like we are in trouble," he remembers telling a colleague.
When the ship with more than 458 people aboard overturned late Monday, he said, it happened so quickly he only had 30 seconds to grab a life jacket and get out of his cabin. He went into the dark and choppy waters of the Yangtze River.
"The raindrops hitting my face felt like hailstones. I tried to hold my breath, but water was forced into my mouth anyway," he told Xinhau.
Not knowing how to swim, he hung onto the life jacket as he floated. He heard other voices in the water, but they soon faded. He saw the lights of a boat, but it passed, apparently not hearing his cries.
"Just hang in there a little longer, I told myself," Zhang said, according to the news agency.
Hours later, around dawn, he floated to shore and crawled to solid ground. He made it to a building, was taken to a hospital and called his family.
"I'm still alive," he told them, Xinhau said. His wife and 15-year-old son broke down upon hearing his voice, he said.
A massive rescue effort is under way to find anybody who might have survived the capsizing of the Eastern Star. The ship was on a pleasure cruise along a stretch of the Yangtze that winds through central China's Hubei province, authorities said. Most of the passengers were senior citizens.
By 9:30 p.m. local time Tuesday -- 24 hours after the Evening Star capsized -- only 15 survivors and five bodies had been recovered as rescuers battled darkness and intermittent rain, Xinhau reported.
The others are feared trapped inside the ship, CNN's David McKenzie reported from the scene.
The survivors included the ship's captain and chief engineer, who were taken into custody for questioning.
Video showed the rescue of an elderly woman who surfaced near the hull wearing a diving mask. Holding a rope, she walked up the hull into the arms of rescuers.
Divers plunged into the river and rescue workers gathered along part of the vessel's upturned hull that was sticking out of the water.
They used hammers to knock on the body of the ship, which was almost completely submerged, and heard responses from inside, a state-run local newspaper reported. Welders used blowtorches in an attempt to cut the hull open.
More than 1,000 armed police officers, equipped with 40 inflatable boats, were participating in the rescue effort, Xinhua said.
Jianli County, China (CNN)Most of the passengers on the Eastern Star cruise ship had gone to bed. A violent storm struck and rain pounded the windows with such force that water seeped into the cabins, survivor Zhang Hui told Xinhau, China's state-run news agency.
The ship began tilting, Zhang told the agency, reaching an angle of 45 degrees at one point. Small bottles rolled off the table in his cabin.
"Looks like we are in trouble," he remembers telling a colleague.
When the ship with more than 458 people aboard overturned late Monday, he said, it happened so quickly he only had 30 seconds to grab a life jacket and get out of his cabin. He went into the dark and choppy waters of the Yangtze River.
"The raindrops hitting my face felt like hailstones. I tried to hold my breath, but water was forced into my mouth anyway," he told Xinhau.
Not knowing how to swim, he hung onto the life jacket as he floated. He heard other voices in the water, but they soon faded. He saw the lights of a boat, but it passed, apparently not hearing his cries.
"Just hang in there a little longer, I told myself," Zhang said, according to the news agency.
Hours later, around dawn, he floated to shore and crawled to solid ground. He made it to a building, was taken to a hospital and called his family.
"I'm still alive," he told them, Xinhau said. His wife and 15-year-old son broke down upon hearing his voice, he said.
A massive rescue effort is under way to find anybody who might have survived the capsizing of the Eastern Star. The ship was on a pleasure cruise along a stretch of the Yangtze that winds through central China's Hubei province, authorities said. Most of the passengers were senior citizens.
By 9:30 p.m. local time Tuesday -- 24 hours after the Evening Star capsized -- only 15 survivors and five bodies had been recovered as rescuers battled darkness and intermittent rain, Xinhau reported.
The others are feared trapped inside the ship, CNN's David McKenzie reported from the scene.
The survivors included the ship's captain and chief engineer, who were taken into custody for questioning.
Video showed the rescue of an elderly woman who surfaced near the hull wearing a diving mask. Holding a rope, she walked up the hull into the arms of rescuers.
Divers plunged into the river and rescue workers gathered along part of the vessel's upturned hull that was sticking out of the water.
They used hammers to knock on the body of the ship, which was almost completely submerged, and heard responses from inside, a state-run local newspaper reported. Welders used blowtorches in an attempt to cut the hull open.
More than 1,000 armed police officers, equipped with 40 inflatable boats, were participating in the rescue effort, Xinhua said.
By Ralph Ellis, Jethro Mullen and Steven Jiang, CNN