CRI听力:14 Survived after Ship Carrying 458 Sinks on Yangtze River

More than 3,000 rescuers, mainly from the armed forces and the police are frantically searching for any survivors from the capsized ferry, the Dongfangzhixing - or Eastern Star.

140 divers and five helicopters have been dispatched to join this massive rescue effort.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has arrived on the scene.

Li says he has ordered a team from the state council to lead the search and rescue operation.

"The first priority is to save the lives of people, although the boat has capsized, we cannot give up the hope of finding survivors trapped inside. Therefore we need to mobilize all the forces, all the strength that the country can muster, because so many people, children and the elderly are trapped inside!"

Divers are tapping the submerged hull and have cut through it with a blowtorch to find survivors.
They managed to find an 85-year-old female passenger near the bow of the ship in this way, earlier today.

Three divers managed to pull her out of the upturned ferry after several hours of braving the turbid currents.

36 ships and 117 rescue boats are scanning a wide-stretch of the Yangze River for any other survivors who may have managed to jump off the ferry before it capsized.

But rescue efforts have been hampered by strong winds and heavy downpours.

Gong Yongjun, an expert on maritime rescue operations from the Dalian Maritime University, says the bad weather complicated the rescue efforts even more.

"The river currents in the Yangtze can reach speed levels that are three or four times beyond what is safe for normal diving operations. And the water has been muddy after rainfalls over the past days, and this reduces visibility underwater."

The four-tier Eastern Star was carrying 406 passengers, five travel-agency staff and 47 crew members when it sank in the Damazhou section of the Yangtze river in Jianli county at 09:28 PM on Monday.

The boat reportedly did not send out an SOS signal before sinking.

Several people had swum to shore and had alerted the police with the help of fishermen.

Among the survivors were the captain and chief engineer of the ship. They have been taken into police custody.

They both claim that the ship had upturned within minutes after being caught in a cyclone.

The ship had set out from Nanjing on Thursday and was heading upriver towards the city of Chongqing.

That stretch of the Yangtze is known for its scenic canyons like the famous Three Gorges.

Many of the passengers on board were elderly Chinese tourists on a package tour organized by Shanghai based cruise company, Xiehe Travels.

Relatives and friends of the passengers onboard say the tour agency hadn't informed them about the accident, until they had learned about it from the media.

The China Insurance Regulatory Commission has set up a special taskforce to help families with insurance claims in the aftermath of the catastrophe.

But rescue teams are still racing against the clock, to save as many lives as possible.

For CRI I'm Poornima Weerasekara.