China cruise ship relatives gather at disaster site

Hundreds of relatives of passengers missing after their cruise ship capsized in central China gathered at the disaster site on Thursday, as rescuers breached the hull in a last-ditch search for more than 400 people believed trapped inside.

Only 14 survivors have been found, along with 26 bodies according to the official count, since the "Eastern Star" overturned Monday night in a storm on the Yangtze river, leaving only a section of its hull protruding from the murky water.

China's state-run CCTV television however reported a much higher death toll, saying that 65 bodies have been recovered.

Workers began cutting into the hull late Wednesday in a risky effort to find survivors, after being buoyed by the rescue of several people who in the immediate aftermath of the disaster took refuge in air pockets inside the vessel.

But after opening up a small hole work was suspended early Thursday, state media said, due to persistent bad weather that has hampered the rescue effort from the start.

Sporadic bursts of torrential rain lashed the site of the sunken ship early Thursday, complicating an operation which risks destabilising the wreck and sending it further into the fast-moving Yangtze.

At least two huge cranes were deployed near the ship, and earlier workers could be seen carefully using cutting equipment on top of the hull.

- Anger boils over -

Information on the accident has been strictly controlled and officials have given few details on the capsize or the progress of the recovery efforts.

Frustration over the information drought, and dimming hopes for anyone being found alive, boiled over on Wednesday in Shanghai, where relatives of missing passengers clashed with police and demanded to be taken to the disaster site.

A video shared on social media showed pushing and shoving between police and angry relatives outside a local government building in China's commercial hub, where many of the passengers hailed from.

Undeterred, some 300 relatives travelled across the country to the capsize site in the Jianli stretch of the river in central Hubei province, while another 200 have registered with authorities and are expected in coming days.

"There are more who did not register with us, but we do not know how many," a woman working at a centre set up to welcome family members told AFP on Thursday.

While many relatives are arriving in coaches arranged by officials, some are driving their own vehicles from as far as Nanjing, an eight-hour journey and from where the ill-fated vessel departed.

Hotels across Jianli were reserving rooms for the relatives, while authorities have beefed up security at areas where they were expected to congregate, such as the riverbank and the town's funeral parlour.

"We have three rooms reserved for families from Nanjing, and one family has already arrived," a staff member at the Qianxi Hotel told AFP.

Chinese state news agency Xinhua warned the disaster could become the deadliest in the country for almost seven decades.

- Possible air pockets -

Still, hopes for finding people alive have not been completely extinguished.

"The ship sank in a very short timeframe so there could still be air trapped in the hull," state news agency Xinhua quoted Li Qixiu of the Naval University of Engineering as saying, which "means there could still be survivors."

Li said divers had attached steel cables to the hull and the plan was to support the body of the boat with cranes while rescuers searched inside, stressing the need to hold the ship steady to stop it sinking further during the delicate operation.

A diver who helped rescue trapped passengers said they had been sitting on a pipe in an air pocket inside the hull no more than 1.5 metres deep, the state-run China Daily reported Thursday.

"The air was thin in that area, but they were able to breathe," Guan said of the handful who made it out alive.

Witnesses and state media said the ship sank in a matter of seconds after it was hit by bad weather. Weather officials said a small but fast-moving tornado was in the area at the time.

Authorities have largely limited official access for foreign journalists to a brief trip along the riverp. Roadblocks are sited about two kilometres (1.2 miles) from the capsized vessel, with cars being turned back even before that point.