Hundreds missing as China ship sinks with 458 aboard

Five people have died and hundreds are missing after a cruise ship carrying 458 people capsized on the Yangtze River in China's Hubei province.

Officials say 14 people have been rescued, with some found alive inside the upside-down hull of the vessel.

The boat, the Eastern Star, reportedly sent no emergency signal. The alarm was raised by those who had swum to shore.

The captain and the chief engineer, who both survived, have been detained. They say the boat was caught in a cyclone.

Chinese media quoted them as saying the vessel sank within minutes, while many people were asleep. BBC weather forecaster Peter Gibbs says severe thunderstorms in the area may have caused the ship to capsize.

Most of those on board were tourists aged around 50 to 80 travelling from the eastern city of Nanjing to Chongqing in the south-west - a journey of at least 1,500km (930 miles).

The ship sank in the Damazhou waterway section of the Yangtze, where the world's third longest river reaches depths of about 15m (50ft).
No doubt for some of those on the Eastern Star it would have been the trip of a lifetime.

And the Three Gorges Dam, a place of pilgrimage in its own right and a powerful symbol of China's rising economic might attracting around two million visitors a year, now has its part to play in the rescue. The dam's engineers have been ordered to reduce the water volume flowing through the giant turbines.

The sinking of the Eastern Star will resonate widely.

A boat full of everyday Chinese tourists - from grandmothers and grandfathers down to the youngest listed passenger at just three years old - has been lost in the waters of the country's best loved river.

At least 14 people have so far been rescued and some with minor injuries have been taken to hospital, officials told reporters. Three of them were rescued from inside the upside-down hull of the ship after it was cut open, Xinhua reports.

Strong winds and heavy rain have been hampering the rescue efforts. According to the People's Daily, three bodies were recovered in Yueyang, Hunan province, some 50km away from the site of the sinking.

The BBC's Jo Floto in Beijing says that China has not seen a disaster on such a scale for a long time.

Thousands of soldiers and rescue personnel have been deployed, and a high-powered salvage ship is on the way to pull the boat upright, reported China Central Television (CCTV).

Footage aired on state TV showed divers knocking on the submerged hull with hammers to try to make contact with people believed to be trapped below.

Chinese premier Li Keqiang has arrived at the scene, according to the People's Daily.

Eastern Star - Dongfangzhixing in Chinese - had been carrying 406 Chinese passengers, five travel agency employees and 47 crew members.

The 76m-long ship weighs 2,200 tons, and could accommodate a maximum of 534 people.

The boat sank at about 21:30 local time on Monday evening (13:30 GMT), but rescuers did not reach the vessel until at least two and a half hours later.

CCTV said the vessel was owned by the Chongqing Eastern Shipping Corporation which runs tours to the scenic Three Gorges river canyon area along the Yangtze River.

Relatives scuffled with officials at a local government building in Shanghai, frustrated over the lack of information being given to them, Reuters reports.

They had earlier gathered outside the closed offices of the travel agency, Xiehe Travel, which made the bookings for the cruise.

They told reporters that phone calls to their loved ones on board were not getting through.

Sina News reported that a young man was seen sobbing by the door, saying: "Mum and Dad I was wrong, I shouldn't have let you go off on your holiday."

Another relative, Huang Yan, says she believes her husband and father-in-law were on board, but she could not be sure because she had not seen the official passenger manifest, the AP news agency reports.

"Why did the captain leave the ship while the passengers were still missing?'' she asked reporters, adding: "We want the government to release the name list to see who was on the boat."