Top ten questions about the Yangtze River passenger ship capsizing incident

1. When did the incident occur and when was the police called?

At around 21:30 on June 1, the tourist ship "Oriental Star" capsized and overturned in the Yangtze River waters in Damazhou Waterway, Jianli County, Jingzhou City, Hubei Province. Jiangsu Wurun Shipping Co., Ltd. intensively received the signal from the ship every 2 seconds throughout the entire process. The signal stopped transmitting at 21:28:49 that night.

Wu Jianqiang, an elderly tourist from Tianjin who escaped, said in an interview with reporters that when the incident occurred, the tea cup overturned and fell to the bottom of the boat. "The whole thing only lasted about 1 minute. It was too fast!" He was the first A person who sends out a distress signal.

At 23:51 that night, the maritime department received an alarm after the person who fell into the water on the ship came ashore. At this time, nearly two and a half hours had passed since the passenger ship capsized.

2. Is the passenger ship out of service?

The "Oriental Star" passenger ship is affiliated to Chongqing Oriental Shipping Company. The ship was built in 1994 and is 21 years old. It is an "old ship" that has been used for more than 15 years and has been renovated in the meantime. However, the mandatory scrappage period of 30 years for passenger ships has not yet been reached. The approved passenger quota is 534, there is no overloading, and there are enough life jackets.

3. Is it a luxury cruise ship?

The reporter learned from interviews that the crashed "Eastern Star" was an ordinary tourist ship on the Yangtze River, not a luxury cruise ship as previously rumored.

According to insiders in the industry, the ship type "Eastern Star" is called an "economic cruise ship" in the industry. Compared with luxury cruise ships, the "Oriental Star" has more densely packed warehouses and is more like a pure transportation passenger ship. Compared with luxury cruise ships, "Eastern Star" has a big gap in safety, comfort and service standards, as well as in hardware facilities. In terms of safety, luxury cruise ships have stronger wind resistance.

4. Is it maintained according to regulations?

Liu Yiqing, an electrician of "Oriental Star", said that the condition of the ship has always been good, and annual inspections have been completed in accordance with regulations. He asked for leave to disembark on May 24 when the passenger ship sailed from Chongqing to Wuhan. "The weather was very good at that time, the river was calm, the ship was in good condition and sailed smoothly. The crew responsible for safety also checked the safety status of the ship every day and found no abnormalities."

According to national regulations, Ship inspections are divided into two systems: central and local. The "Oriental Star" is not a luxury cruise ship and is inspected by local ship inspection departments.

According to relevant regulations, ships that have been launched for more than 15 years must be inspected more frequently than ordinary ships. Passenger ships older than 24 years must undergo special inspections every year, while ordinary ships only need to be inspected every 6 years. Conduct a special inspection.

5. Was there a tornado at the time of the incident?

The expert team of the China Meteorological Administration announced on June 2 that a tornado occurred locally during the Yangtze River shipwreck incident. The wind force was above level 12. The main body of the tornado was located on the river surface, with a horizontal scale of less than 1 kilometer. The tornado lasted 15 By 20 minutes, it will be a local, small-scale, sudden severe convective disaster weather. The China Meteorological Administration sent an expert team to the Yangtze River to conduct on-site inspections of the sunken ship, and made this conclusion based on comprehensive meteorological monitoring, weather radar monitoring data and on-site inspection analysis

6. Why can a tornado instantly "capture" a passenger ship?

Huang Jianwei, director of the Navigation Department of the Shanghai Maritime Safety Administration, said that in order for a ship to maintain stable sailing, it must have buoyancy and stability so that the ship can reach a balanced state. When the external force is greater than the buoyancy and stability of the ship, the ship will capsize. The wind resistance of inland river ships is worse than that of sea-going ships. "Eastern Star" is 8-9 meters above the water surface and only 3.2 meters below the water surface. The ship's draft is shallow. The news released is that the ship encountered a tornado of magnitude 9.2, which is extremely destructive to the ship. Generally, ships will no longer sail when encountering winds of magnitude 8, but will anchor to take shelter.

7. Why is underwater rescue so difficult?

Li Qixiu, an expert from the Naval Engineering University of China, said there were five main difficulties in the underwater rescue.

Difficulty 1: Low visibility underwater. After days of heavy rain, the river water was turbid, the underwater visibility was low, and the visual distance was short. The divers basically relied on their hands to explore. Although they were equipped with strong lights, they could still see nothing under the turbid water.

Difficulty 2: The water is fast. According to diving regulations, you cannot dive if the flow rate exceeds 1.5 meters/second, but the water speed reaches 1.8 meters/second in some locations.

Difficulty 3: The water temperature is cold. The water temperature is around 20 degrees, and divers can stay in the water for about an hour at a time and feel cold if they stay for a long time.

Difficulty 4: The rescued person lost control of his emotions. The survivors are basically on the verge of psychological collapse. After seeing the diver, they will hug the diver tightly and have low acceptance of correct rescue instructions.

Difficulty 5: The underwater environment is complex and the curve in and out is dangerous. The pipes carried by divers and the signal ropes tied to the body are easily entangled by door panels, machines and other debris. Once sharp debris damages the rescue equipment, it will pose a huge threat to the diver's life. Guan Dong, the diver who rescued two survivors, encountered this danger. He decisively cut off the entangled signal rope, threw away the diving equipment, and quickly emerged from the deep water. After emerging from the water, his eyes were red, his nostrils were bleeding, and his ears were swollen and painful.

8. How many rescue options are there? What is the overall rescue process like?

On June 2, on the command ship "Navigation Survey 201", ministers, generals, and rescue experts repeatedly deduced the salvage and rescue plan. ***Three options were submitted for discussion: cutting the hull; hoisting the hull; and underwater exploration and search by divers.

Option one may be implemented the fastest, but it may cause the hull to sink after the air cushion leaks; option two requires the mobilization of large ships, and there is no time; option three is the most feasible to save survivors if conditions are possible. method.

More than 200 divers from the Navy’s East China Sea, North Sea, and South China Sea fleets and the Naval Engineering University were urgently deployed to the scene for rescue. At the same time, the rescue headquarters urgently dispatched a salvage ship to carry out hull salvage work when it was in place. Local governments and villagers along the river carried out a comprehensive search and rescue operation, and the search and rescue scope was expanded to 200 kilometers downstream of the incident.

During more than 70 hours of search and rescue, more than 200 divers explored more than 100 rooms on the ship one by one and successfully rescued two trapped people.

On the 3rd, the hull cutting operation was put on the agenda. Rescuers cut holes in the air chamber, sewage well, and first cabin, but found no signs of life.

On the 4th, divers went deep into the river bottom in batches to carry out wire threading work across the bottom, and put wires on the front and rear of the ship for righting and lifting.

At 7:02 on the 5th, the correction work began. Completely righted at 9:06. At around 19:00, the sunken ship was lifted out of the water.

9. Why can’t you cut it hastily? Why cut the hull after 48 hours?

Experts such as Wu Zhenglian, a senior engineer at CSSC 708 Institute, pointed out that when a ship suddenly capsizes, the air in the cabin will be discharged very slowly in the water and will move upward in the cabin, possibly forming a lot of air cushions or voids. Air bags can sustain human life in the short term. As the air pressure inside the ship increases, it causes the ship to float to the surface. If the rescue operation is carried out rashly, it will directly cause the "Eastern Star" passenger ship to sink to the bottom of the river, and the previous work will be in vain.

Li Qixiu, an expert from the Naval Engineering University, said that the "Eastern Star" capsized in a very short period of time, so there may still be an air cushion layer at the bottom of the cabin closest to the water surface. The two rescued people came from the bottom of the boat. The air mattress was rescued. But the longer the delay, the smaller the chance of survival for survivors. Cutting the hull will give survivors more hope of survival. Cutting will cause air to escape and cause the hull to sink, so steel cables need to be wrapped around the hull, and salvage ships use steel cables to lift the ship. Scheduling of salvage ships, winding of steel cables, etc. all take time.

10. Why did the righting start on June 5?

Xu Chengguang, spokesperson of the Ministry of Transport, said that the decision to make the overall correction and refloating fully considered five factors:

1. Combined with recent search results and the use of life detection According to the results of the instrument, no survivors or signs of life were found. According to comprehensive research and analysis by experts, the hope of finding any more survivors in the ship is getting slimmer. When the overall judgment is that there is no possibility of survival, the overall righting can be implemented;

2. The overall righting and floating operations are conducive to accelerating the progress of search and rescue and searching for missing persons;

3. The righting and floating operations are in line with international conventions and professional practices;

4. The equipment and facilities on site are complete, all preparations are in place, and the ship has righting and floating capabilities;

5. Experts and technologies in salvage and rescue, hull and ship repair and other fields have been mobilized from across the country. personnel, providing technical support for the work to be carried out.

According to international practice, 72 hours is regarded as the standard line of life. Before that, every effort must be made to determine whether there is life; if 72 hours is up and it is determined that there is no life, then turn the boat over. This is a threat to life. respect.