Rescuers yesterday cut through the bottom of an upended tugboat to free a Chinese interpreter and searched for 22 more missing people, including eight foreigners, after the vessel capsized in the Yangtze River, the state-run Xinhua news agency and officials said.
Four Singaporeans, an Indonesian, a Malaysian, an Indian and a Japanese were among the missing after the tugboat overturned on Thursday afternoon, during a test voyage in the river’s Fubei Channel in the eastern province of Jiangsu, Xinhua said.
Three people have been rescued, including the interpreter early yesterday, about 14 hours after the boat toppled over with 25 people aboard, the report said.
Photo: AFP
Rescuers said they believed people were trapped in the boat’s cabin and were using a crane to try to lift the sunken boat, but that swift currents were making that difficult, Xinhua said.
The missing included the boat’s owner and engineers, it said.
Wang Zhenkai told Xinhua he was the interpreter for a Japanese engineer who was pulled away by swirling currents as the boat went down.
Wang said he survived by holding onto a hydraulic pump.
“Only the two of us were in the cockpit. We had just finished the host load test of the boat’s main engine when the vessel suddenly slid over. Water immediately filled in,” Wang was quoted as saying.
The Jiangsu provincial government’s news office said that 27 vessels were involved in the search and rescue operation, but had no further details about the sinking.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in