CHANGSHA, CHINA (BNO NEWS) — Rescue workers in central China have recovered the bodies of ten people who remained missing after a passenger boat capsized late last week, raising the death toll to eleven, local authorities said on Friday.
The accident occurred at around 10 a.m. local time on Sunday in the Yuanjiang River in Luxi County, which is located in the province of Hunan, when a vessel lost control and crashed into a freighter before capsizing. The Yuanjiang River, which is also known as simply the Yuan River, is a tributary of the Yangtze, the country’s longest river.
Local authorities told the state-run Xinhua news agency that a total of 25 people were on board the vessel at the time of the accident. Rescue teams with a total of more than 500 workers rushed to the scene and were able to pull fourteen survivors from the river, but they also located the body of one person.
With the help of 22 boats, search-and-rescue operations continued throughout the week until late Thursday afternoon, when the bodies of the ten missing people were recovered. Among the casualties is a 76-year-old person, the oldest victim, and a six-year-old child, the youngest victim.
Xinhua said investigators believe the captain lost control of the vessel after experiencing an engine failure while traveling from Luxi County to its neighboring Chenxi County. The report did not indicate whether all the victims were passengers or whether any crew members were among those killed.
