Cruise ship[1]
sinks in China's Yangtze River with 458 aboard
By Jethro Mullen and Steven Jiang, CNN
Updated 0538 GMT (1238 HKT) June 2,
2015
Hong
Kong (CNN)Rescuers are scrambling to[2]
find survivors from a cruise ship that sank with 458 people aboard during a
storm on China's Yangtze River, authorities said.
The
rescue workers have heard sounds from within the capsized ship and are trying
to reach the people they believe are inside the cabin[3],
state media reported Tuesday.
Twelve
survivors have been rescued so far and five bodies have been recovered from[4]
the ship, which sank late Monday, according to the Hubei Daily, a state-run[5]
newspaper.
The
survivors include the captain and chief[6]
engineer, who have been taken into custody[7] by
police, China's state-run broadcaster [8]CCTV
reported.
But
the fates of the hundreds of other people on the ship was unclear.
Images
from the scene showed the ship upside down[9] in
the river, a section of its hull[10]
protruding[11]
above the surface of the water.
China's
state-run broadcaster CCTV carried video of rescue workers walking on the
exposed part of the upturned[12]
ship. One of them was lying flat on the hull, tapping against the metal with a
small hammer.
Divers
who knocked on the ship under the water heard responses from inside, the
Chutian Metro Daily, a state-run newspaper, reported. It said welders[13]
were trying to cut open the cabin.
The
ship, the Eastern Star, went down[14]
around 9:30 p.m. Monday during a storm over the section of the river that flows
through the central province[15]
of Hubei, China's state-run news agency Xinhua reported, citing the Yangtze River
navigation[16]
administration.
Most of the 406 passengers reported to have been on the ship are believed to be over the age of 50. There were also 47 crew members and five travel agency workers on board, according to state media.
Chinese
Premier Li Keqiang and other senior officials are on their way to the site of
the disaster in Hubei's Jianli county to oversee[17]
the emergency response, Xinhua said.
The
rescue efforts were initially complicated by bad weather, according to the news
agency.
The
Eastern Star was reported to have been traveling from Nanjing in eastern China
to Chongqing, a city more than 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) inland.
The
Yangtze is the third-longest river in the world, stretching 6,300 kilometers
(3,915 miles) from its source in the mountains of Tibet all the way to the East
China Sea.
The
images of the upended[18]
ship evoked memories of the sinking of the Sewol, the South Korean passenger
ferry that sank last year, taking the lives of more than 300 people, most of
them high school students.
CNN's
Shen Lu, Tim Schwarz and Salma Abdelaziz contributed to this report.
Structure
of the Lead：
WHO- Rescuers
WHAT-
are scrambling to find survivors from a cruise ship
WHERE-
on China's Yangtze River
WHEN- not
given
WHY- not
given
HOW- not
given
Vocabulary：
I have never thought that such a big tornado would occur at Yangtze River. Isn't it near Taiwan and has similar climate pattern with Taiwan? Before reading the article, I didn't know there were so many people died from the late rescue. Hope there won't be any other huge disaster happen in the future.
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