By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
BEIJING (Worthy News) – Rescue teams salvaged a ferry that was hit by an oil spill cleaning vessel on a river in southern China, killing 11 people, but at least five people remained missing Saturday, officials said.
News emerged overnight that 19 people fell overboard during the crash on the Yuanshui River in Hunan province on Tuesday morning, but only three were rescued the same day.
The accident occurred where the river is, on average, more than 60 meters (200 feet) deep and 500 meters (1,600 feet) wide.
State media said rescue teams salvaged the ferry on Friday night and continued the search.
One rescued person reportedly escaped the ferry by breaking a window with his foot. Video footage showed the much larger oil spill-cleaning vessel hitting the ferry from behind in calm water.
The crash shocked the local community, and the ferry was described as the primary way for people to come and go from their village.
POLICE INVESTIGATION
Authorities said three people on the larger boat, none of whom were injured, were placed under investigation by police after their boat reached shore safely.
More details about the criminal investigation were not immediately available.
As economies grow, several nations, including China, have been struggling with safety issues and regulating increasingly crowded waterways. “There is still a big gap in the rescue capability between China and developed countries,” noted the Institute of Physics (IOP), a scientific charity.
China isn’t alone: In Hungary, for instance, on the evening of May 29, 2019, the cruise liner Viking Sigyn collided with a smaller tourist boat called Hableany, Hungarian for Mermaid, near a bridge in Budapest, the capital.
The Mermaid sank in less than a minute, killing 27 of the 35 people on board, most of them South Koreans. One South Korean tourist is still missing following the accident in the Danube River, one of Europe’s main waterways.
(With additional reporting by the Worthy News Europe Bureau in Budapest.)
Copyright 1999-2026 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
More Worthy News
New York Sen. Chuck Schumer has filed a bill to give the pride flag the same legal standing as the U.S. flag and military banners.
Israeli police announced Monday they will deploy heavily around the Temple Mount compound throughout the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, as Palestinian officials accused Israel of imposing new restrictions at the sensitive Jerusalem site.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance said Tuesday that the second round of nuclear negotiations with Tehran yielded “some progress,” but cautioned that Iran has yet to acknowledge or work through key American red lines set by President Donald Trump.
The United States has surged more than 50 fighter jets to the Middle East over the past 24 hours, according to open-source flight tracking data and confirmation from a U.S. official, as Washington and Tehran conduct a second round of nuclear negotiations in Geneva, Switzerland.
U.S. Southern Command announced strikes on three suspected drug boats in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean.
Russia said Tuesday that its air defenses shot down more than 150 Ukrainian drones overnight, as delegations from Kyiv and Moscow gathered in Geneva for U.S.-backed peace talks aimed at ending Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.
A series of alleged attacks and harassment targeting Christian communities in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province, including at least one fatal assault, has raised renewed concern about the safety of religious minorities, advocacy group LEAD Ministries said.