Hundreds Missing After Ship Sinks in China

A Chinese cruise ship traveling along the Yangtze River encountered a violent storm and resulted in it capsizing on Monday night. Rescue workers have been scrambling around the sunken ship since; all search desperately for over 400 passengers missing. The Eastern Star carried mostly senior citizens, and rescuers are drilling holes into the boat as an attempt to discover signs of life. The search parties have extended over 135 miles up and down the Yangtze River.

Search team standing on top of the bottom side of the
Eastern Star cruise ship.

Wednesday authorities claimed that eighteen people were determined dead, fourteen survived, and hundreds still missing. Some of the survivors were the ship's captain and a couple crew members, who were taken under custody for questioning. Allegedly, divers in the water used hammers to bang on the submerged parts of the ship, and heard banging in response. To help with the rescue effort, the amount of water being released from the Three Gorges Dam (very large hydroelectric plant, upstream from ship). More than 4,000 people and 110 vessels are  part of the search and rescues still going on at this very moment.