22 missing after boat on trial run overturns
Print Edition
TWENTY-TWO people, including eight foreigners, remain missing after a tugboat sank on the Yangtze River on Thursday afternoon.
The newly built vessel was undergoing trials with 25 people on board in the river’s Fubei Channel in east China’s Jiangsu Province, Xinhua news agency said.
The scene of the accident is on a stretch of the river between the cities of Jingjiang and Zhangjiagang, close to the mouth of the Yangtze near Shanghai.
Three Chinese have been rescued. The foreigners are four from Singapore and individuals from India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Japan, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
According to the local maritime authority, the boat was on a trial voyage without having been granted permission or informing it of its intended route.
Xinhua said the incident happened about 3pm on Thursday. A first batch of rescue ships, which found the boat already overturned, managed to pluck two people from the water.
A third was rescued at 5:30am yesterday. Wang Chenkai was an interpreter for a Japanese engineer on board.
“Only the two of us were in the cockpit,” Wang told Xinhua. He said one test had just been completed when the vessel suddenly keeled over. “Water immediately came flooding in,” he said.
The cabin filled with water in about 20 seconds. Wang survived by holding onto a hydraulic pump, he said. For a moment, he had hold of the Japanese engineer but the strong current swept him from his grasp and the boat began to sink.
Wang and the two other survivors are being treated in Jingjiang People’s Hospital in Jiangsu.
About 30 vessels, including patrol boats and tugboats, are searching for the missing.
Wang Shiming, vice director of the Jiangsu Maritime Safety Administration, told Shanghai Dragon TV the rescue work was difficult because of strong currents.
Rescuers are searching within a 20km diameter of the accident spot, while a salvage barge is trying to raise the vessel and move it to shallow waters.
The boat was built by Anhui Bengbu Shenzhou Machinery Co Ltd in October.
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