Doomed China boat cited for safety issues

The cruise boat that capsized in China's Yangtze River with more than 450 people aboard on Monday had previously been cited for safety violations, according to a Chinese maritime agency.

Authorities in Nanjing, where the Eastern Star began its doomed voyage, impounded the ship and five others after it found infractions during a safety inspection in 2013, according to the city's maritime safety website.

The report emerged as Chinese authorities escalated efforts Wednesday to recover more than 400 people believed to be trapped inside the overturned boat, according the state-run news media.

The capsizing late Monday of the multi-decked Eastern Star could become the country's deadliest maritime disaster in seven decades. Chinese authorities have launched a high-profile response while tightly controlling media coverage.

As of Wednesday morning, only 14 of the 456 passengers and crew on board the ship had been found alive. Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said the bodies of 26 victims had been found. Police have detained the ship's captain and chief engineer.

The Nanjing safety report, which was seen by the Associated Press and other news organizations, listed dozens of violations on the inspected boats, including failing to use the ship's automated identification systems. However, it didn't break down the infractions by individual vessel or say who owned the other vessels.

In one case, according to The New York Times, the crew did not know how to put on life jackets and failed to tell passengers about safety precautions after they boarded.

For decades, the Eastern Star and other "three-star" cruise ships have made the 1,100 mile journey to and from southwestern China's Chongqing, perched high above the Yangtze, past the scenic Three Gorges and their gargantuan dam, to Nanjing.

Operators of the flat-bottomed, multi-decked ships charge their mostly older passengers modest fares of about $160 for three- to five-day tours, the AP reported, most meals included.

At the site of the disaster Wednesday, rescuers escalated efforts to retrieve those missing abroad the Eastern Star, which sits belly-up in the middle of the miles-wide river.

As divers searched, a large crane stood ready for a possible effort to raise the craft. The 2,200 gross-ton vessel, built in 1994, is 250 feet long and carries a maximum of 534 passengers.

According to state media, Premier Li Keqiang, the country's No. 2 leader, was at the site in the Hubei province county of Jianli where he urged "all-out," 24/7 efforts. Many of the passengers were elderly tourists taking in the scenic vistas of the Yangtze.

The shallow-draft boat, which was not designed to withstand as heavy winds as an ocean-going vessel can, overturned in what Chinese weather authorities have called a cyclone, or tornado, with winds up to 80 mph.

"The river ships tend to have a lower standard on wind-resistance and wave-resistance than ocean ships," Zhong Shoudao, president of the Chongqing Boat Design Institute, said at a news conference along with weather and Transportation Ministry officials.

"The boat had life jackets and lifeboats, but due to the sudden capsizing, there was not enough time for people to put on life jackets or for the signals to be sent out," Zhong said.

The squad of 13 navy divers who searched the boat Tuesday — and pulled out three trapped survivors from air pockets after voices were heard through the hull — was expanded Wednesday to 202.

State-owned CCTV said rescuers were deciding Wednesday whether to cut further into the overturned hull — an option that would imply hopes still lingered for finding survivors trapped in air pockets — or to right the ship by bringing two salvage ships to the stern and bow to act as a vise keeping the craft in place while a crane pulls it back into an upright position.

Transport ministry spokesman Xu Chengguang vowed that the search for survivors would continue "until all hope is lost."

"We will not give up on our final efforts," Xu told reporters, "although I know that our colleagues at the scene are facing a great many difficulties."

Media access to the site has been tightly controlled, and has been blocked by police and paramilitary troops stationed along the river's embankment.

However, local Communist Party officials and the foreign ministry organized a boat trip for about four dozen journalists to a location about 150 yards from the overturned hull.

Huang Delong, a deck hand on a car ferry crossing the Yangtze nearby, told the AP he was working Monday evening when the weather turned nasty ahead of the ship's capsizing about 9:30 p.m.

"From about 9 p.m. it began raining extremely hard, then the cyclone hit and the wind was really terrifying," Huang said.

Some relatives of those aboard have questioned whether everything was done to ensure the safety of the passengers and have demanded help from local officials in Nanjing and Shanghai in unruly scenes that have drawn a heavy police response.

Wang Yi, 35, an insurance company employee in Shanghai whose father was on the Eastern Star, told reporters that local authorities told her they would organize travel to the disaster site for up to two family members of each passenger, but that they had not yet said when that trip would take place.

China's deadliest maritime disaster in recent decades was when the Dashun ferry caught fire and capsized off the eastern coast of Shandong province in November 1999, killing about 280.

If a large number of survivors are not found, the Eastern Star disaster could become China's deadliest since the sinking of the SS Kiangya off Shanghai in December 1948, which is believed to have killed from 2,750 to nearly 4,000 people.

The ship rolled over without warning in high winds Monday night on the Yangtze River. It floated downriver for about 2 miles before grounding on shore.

1. Rescuers can't simply cut holes into the upturned hull. Air trapped inside keeps the ship from sinking. Holes would let the air escape and the ship would sink.

2.For safety requirements, most ships have double-bottomed hulls — two hulls, one nestled inside the other.

3. There's about 3 to 4 feet of space between the hulls. In that space is a series of tanks used for storing liquids – fuel, water or sewage. The liquids are used as ballast, to keep the ship upright.

4. Even if the ship were fully grounded or stabilized, rescuers would have to know how to avoid the tanks to cut holes. The inches-thick steel of the hulls require high-heat cutting tools.

5. As more equipment arrives on the scene, rescuers might try pumping in air from the side of the ship, for the people trapped inside and to keep the vessel stabilized.

6. River currents can be difficult for divers to navigate. Sediments reduce visibility.