Hopes for China boat passengers fade at hospital

Jianli, China // Exhausted by an eight-hour overnight drive, a frantic couple searched a hospital on Wednesday for their uncle and aunt — among more than 400 passengers missing in one of China’s worst ship disasters.

But hopes were fading, both at Jianli’s People’s Hospital and on the banks of the Yangtze where the ship capsized, of finding more survivors.

Just 14 people had been rescued as of Wednesday from the Eastern Star cruise ship, which overturned late on Monday in a storm with 456 people — mostly elderly passengers — on board.

“We drove from 10pm last night to 6am this morning to get here,” the woman said at the hospital, looking pale and worn after the family’s painful journey.

Her uncle and aunt had boarded the ship in their home city of Nanjing. It capsized about 750km to the west in the Jianli stretch of the river in the central province of Hubei.

The couple travelled the same distance by car to seek news of their loved ones, taking the missing couple’s child with them on the harrowing drive.

“Their child went to the site of the accident,” the woman added, as the man shook his head despondently.

“We don’t really know anything,” he said — the fading hope apparent on his face.

Many relatives have complained of a lack of information about the fate of their loved ones.

Passengers had little warning before the ship sank. Zhang Hui, a 43-year-old tour guide, told Xinhua news agency he had just “30 seconds to grab a life jacket”.

The captain and chief engineer, who were also among the survivors and were being questioned by police, both said the ship was caught in a freak storm, which weather authorities have described as a tornado.

Among others to have made it out of the ship alive, two — a man aged about 30 and an elderly person — are in the intensive care unit at the Jianli hospital, a doctor said.

Three others were in “good condition” in the general ward.

Among them was a man in his twenties who appeared visibly shaken and shocked.

Another man, whom the doctor said was aged in his forties, appeared in relatively good spirits as he talked to nurses who tended his ruptured Achilles tendon.

The third man, in his fifties, suffered a fractured collarbone and needs a second operation, the doctor said.

“They are very calm about this,” he added.

“But we did not ask details ... they just said the boat overturned very suddenly.”

Meanwhile, dozens of angry relatives of those missing clashed with authorities in Shanghai on Wednesday, demanding answers and to be taken to the scene of the tragedy on the banks of the Yangtze.

Many of the passengers were from the eastern part of the country.

As Chinese authorities threw up an exclusion zone around the site of the Eastern Star, relatives desperate for news massed outside Shanghai’s main government building.

Video shared on social media showed the group confronting uniformed police outside the building, pushing and shouting. An unidentified man fell to the ground during the melee.

“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 young woman whose mother was on the boat.

The police led the group inside the building and then bussed them to a government-designated reception centre, a cavernous room where other tearful relatives were glued to a television airing live coverage of the rescue effort.

At the reception centre frustrated families complained bitterly about the lack of information and begged to be taken to see the upturned vessel.

“We need to go to the site. That’s our common appeal,” said the mother of seven-year-old Yang Chenlin who was on the boat with her grandparents.

“No matter whether she is dead or not, we want to know and we need to see her body,” the girl’s maternal grandmother Xu Naixiong said.

At the centre, a petition was circulating with demands for more information and access to the site.

Chong Ye, whose 55-year-old father and 53-year-old mother were on the boat, said the relatives were being stonewalled.

“Waiting here is no use at all,” he said. “It’s already two days. No news has come out. I just want to know how my parents are. Why can’t the government at least tell us this?”

Authorities took away one man who confronted police at the centre, but he later said he had been quickly released.

“I’m OK. The police didn’t make it difficult for me,” he posted to social media.

*Agence France-Presse and Associated Press