CCTV9英语新闻：幸存者回忆的翻船时刻

While frantic efforts to find survivors continues, those few pulled to safety are now going through intense shock and grief. Two of them retraced the events of the tragic night.

 

43-year-old Zhang Hui is one of only a handful of survivors. The tragic events leading up to terrible accident are still fresh and painful.

 

Zhang said many of the elderly people on-board had already gone to bed at 9 pm, when the storm suddenly intensified.

 

At about twenty past nine, as Zhang was walking toward his bedroom, the ship began to lean to the side. He quickly grabbed a life vest and threw himself out the window. In the space of minutes, the ship had overturned.

 

At first, Zhang saw around 20 people floating around him. Then as the minutes passed, only three or four. After half an hour, he was alone.

 

Over the next 10 hours, Zhang - who doesn't know how to swim - was at the mercy of the wild waves. Exhausted, he tried his best to stay awake. When he finally reached the river bank, about 50 kilometers from the accident, Zhang could barely believe he was still alive.

 

Another survivor, 58-year-old Wu Jianqiang, was the first to call the police.

 

He said the rushing waters lifted him up to the river's surface while his wife was stuck beneath the bed in their room.

 

He was just 150 meters from the bank, but it took him more than ten minutes to swim against the wild waves.

 

Once safe, Wu called his son to tell him his mother was gone.

 

Some of the survivors were hospitalized after suffering from injuries.

 

"One person had heavy injuries. Multiple injuries. The patient's knee joint had a laceration and the left shoulder was dislocated. We managed to treat the injuries last night. The patient is now in stable condition. A second victim suffered minor injuries. He had an open wound on his left ankle and a ruptured achilles tendon. We operated, and the patient is now doing better. Another young man has also been treated, and is in good condition," Deng Zhibo, Vice Director of Jianli People's Hospital, said.

 

The hospital's vice director says one of the survivors is in a state of shock... and can't remember how he managed to escape the sinking ship.

 

But for the other survivors, the memories are all too vivid.... while for most of the passengers' families, the wait for news of their loved ones grows more unbearable with every passing hour.