More than a dozen people have so far been rescued at the Yangtze River in central China’s Hubei province and at least 5 bodies have been recovered after a cruise ship sank Monday night..458 people were onboard. Most of them were elderly. According to a statement from the local administration released earlier, a category 9.2 cyclone hit that part of the river where the ship was, between 9 and 10 pm on Monday. Both the captain and the chief engineer said that the ship apparently sank very quickly, in just 1 or 2 minutes, after being caught in the cyclone. Meanwhile, a salvage ship has now been deployed at the site. Rescuers are planning to cut through the hull to bring trapped passengers out, after divers reported hearing banging coming from inside. The ship, named Eastern Star, sank at around 9:28 pm Monday in the Jianli section of the Yangtze River. It is upside down in 15 meters of water with a part of its hull visible. The ship was heading from Nanjing, capital city of east China’s Jiangsu Province, to southwest China’s Chongqing municipal city. There were altogether 458 people on board, including 406 passengers, 5 travel agency workers and 47 crew members. One local newspaper says most passengers on board were between the ages of 50 and 80.
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