A Chinese ferry with 458 people aboard sank on the Yangtze river on Monday night after crew reported that it had been caught in a sudden storm. According to state media, as of Tuesday morning only 12 people had been rescued and more than 400 people were missing.
Chinese premier Li Keqiang and other senior State Council officials have rushed to the disaster site to direct rescue work, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
The Dongfangzhixing, or Eastern Star, sank at around 9.30pm in Jianli, Hubei province, according to the bureau that manages shipping along China’s longest river. The boat was en route from Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province, to Chongqing in southwest China — a popular tourist route through the Three Gorges.