A Chinese passenger ship carrying 458 people on the Yangtze River sank in a storm Monday night, state media reported.
Eight people were saved, including the captain and the chief engineer, and Chinese President Xi Jinping ordered “all-out rescue efforts,” the official Xinhua news agency said Tuesday. Strong winds and heavy rain were hampering rescuers.
Premier Li Keqiang was heading to the scene, in Hubei Province, to direct the rescue work, Xinhua said.
The Eastern Star was carrying 405 Chinese passengers, five travel agency employees and 47 crew when it went down about 9:30 p.m. Most of the passengers were seniors, reportedly between about 50 to 80 years old.
The ship was travelling from the eastern city of Nanjing to Chongqing in the southwest. State-run CCTV said the vessel was owned by the Chongqing Eastern Shipping Corp., which runs tours to the scenic Three Gorges river canyon on the river, the longest in Asia, the BBC reported.