An early Tuesday report from Beijing says a passenger ship with more than 450 people on board sunk around 9:30 p.m. Monday in China's Yangtze River during a heavy storm.
Ministry of Transport confirmed that as of Tuesday afternoon, 12 people out of the 458 people on board have been rescued.
It said those rescued included the captain and the chief engineer and a 65 year-old woman.
The ministry said the ship was not overloaded and was equipped with sufficient life jackets. All those rescued were wearing life jackets.
An early Tuesday report from Beijing says a passenger ship with more than 450 people on board sunk around 9:30 p.m. Monday in China's Yangtze River during a heavy storm.
Ministry of Transport confirmed that as of Tuesday afternoon, 12 people out of the 458 people on board have been rescued.
It said those rescued included the captain and the chief engineer and a 65 year-old woman.
The ministry said the ship was not overloaded and was equipped with sufficient life jackets. All those rescued were wearing life jackets.
It said most of the passengers on board were senior citizens aged 50 to 80, adding that the ship capsized when it was caught in a tornado.
The ministry sad more than 1,000 police officers had also been dispatched to the scene.
Meanwhile, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang arrived the scene to supervise rescue work along with two other senior officials.
He called for "all-out rescue efforts" and better safety measures,
Hubei's provincial emergency office confirmed that a tornado was detected in the area between 9 pm and 10 pm on Monday.
It said the section of the river where the accident occurred is a place where strong storms are known to occur.
The office said emergency response efforts were earlier hindered by strong wind and heavy rain.
The ship was en route to south-western China's Chongqing city from Nanjing, the capital of the eastern province of Jiangsu.
The two cities are some 1,200 kilometres apart.
The ship built in 1994 it had a capacity of more than 500 passengers.
Passengers' relatives gathered Tuesday outside a Shanghai travel agency that had booked many of the trips and then headed to a local government office looking for answers.
WISTA Says Port Concession Has Improved Service Delivery At Ports
The Women in International Shipping and Trading Association (WISTA) said on Tuesday that the concessioning of ports had improved cargo delivery service in Nigerian ports.
The President of the association, Mrs Jean Chiazor-Anishere, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
She said: “The port concessioning have introduced new equipment, never mind the incessant charges that shippers are complaining about.
“In terms of infrastructure our seaport are now of international standard but not Uhuru yet, because the rail tracks have not been totally reactivated.
“For Lagos seaport, they’ve started something, there is a lot of improvement.
“In terms of wharf rats in the years past they were so many, we still have a quite a number but there is a reduction.
“The Nigeria Customs in their wisdom have introduced PAAR (Pre Arrival Assessment Report) system although we know that it was what COTECNA (Terminal Operator) started with.
“The fact that the Nigeria Customs have adopted that and modified it to suit our own situation is commendable and should be encourage because they are making it indigenised.
“Making it localised our own system as suppose to the foreign company COTECNA.’’
Chiazor-Anishere, however, urged the Federal Government to assist in decongesting the access roads to the ports in order to increase the turnaround time of vessels.
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