China boat relatives stage protest

Relatives of some of the nearly 400 people missing after a cruise ship capsized on China's Yangtze River have staged a protest near the sinking site.

Dozens of people broke through police cordons at the river in Jianli, Hubei province, demanding more information.

State media says 65 people are now confirmed to have died when the Eastern Star overturned in a storm on Monday.

Rescue workers have begun cutting into the hull of the upturned vessel so divers can search inside.

But they have been battling heavy rain, and there is concern that this could release any air trapped inside, causing the ship to sink completely.

The official death toll leapt on Thursday morning after divers retrieved 39 more bodies overnight. Only 14 of the 456 passengers are known to have escaped.

No more survivors were found overnight, but officials say they have not given up hope.

"The ship sank in a very short time frame, so there could still be air trapped in the hull," Li Qixiu of the Naval University of Engineering told the state news agency Xinhua.

Premier Li Keqiang, who is in Jianli overseeing the operation, was quoted earlier by Xinhua as saying: "As long as there is the slightest hope, we must go all-out to find the missing."

Scores of relatives of the passengers have travelled to Jianli to be near the wreck, many from Nanjing where the cruise began in late May. Officials have set up contact centres for them in local hotels.

On Wednesday night, several dozen people pushed through police lines, set up to control access to the site, then marched towards the river.

But organiser Wang Feng told Reuters: "This isn't going to be much use, we're just doing this for the government to see."

The BBC's Celia Hatton in Beijing says families have a lot of questions about the disaster, including how such a large ship could sink so quickly, and why no alarm was raised. They are also demanding a full list of the passengers on board.

Another group of relatives staged a protest in Shanghai, where the tour company most passengers had booked through, Xiehe Travel, is based. Videos distributed on social media showed them jostling with police as they gathered in the city's People's Square demanding more information.

Ji Guoxin, whose parents were still missing, said Xiehe Travel had just given them a hotline number and told them to make their own way to Jianli.

"But, you know, seeing the situation, if we go by ourselves without organisation, it might endanger the rescue operations onsite. I still hope my parents are alive but if we make trouble there, there will be no hope anymore."

Another protester told reporters: "We want somebody from the local government to receive us and tell all family members what we should do."

The cause of the sinking is not yet known, but survivors have spoken of an intense storm which flipped the boat in minutes.

The captain and chief engineer were among those who escaped - they are both in police detention.

Maritime agency records which emerged on Wednesday showed the ship was investigated for safety violations two years ago.

Documents on the Nanjing Maritime Safety website showed the Eastern Star was held alongside five other vessels in 2013 over safety concerns, although no further details are available.

• The 76m-long, 2,200 tonne ship was named Dongfangzhixing in Chinese
• It was carrying 405 passengers - mostly elderly tourists but one three-year-old - as well as five travel agency employees and 46 crew members.
• The ship is owned by the Chongqing Eastern Shipping Corporation, and passengers had booked their trip through a travel agency in Shanghai.
• The cruise left the eastern city of Nanjing in April and was travelling to Chongqing in the south-west via the Three Gorges - a journey of at least 1,500km (930 miles).