Over the “May Day” holiday, a tourist boat in a scenic area of Guizhou Province capsized, resulting in 84 people falling into the water, with 10 fatalities and 70 injuries.
According to reports from the official state media, the command center of the rescue operation at the scene of the capsized tourist boat in Qiandongnan Prefecture, Guizhou, received information that around 12:35 p.m. on May 5th, the last missing person was found and retrieved by rescue personnel, but showed no signs of life.
Currently, all 84 individuals who fell into the water have been accounted for. Among them, 10 have tragically lost their lives, while 70 are receiving treatment in hospitals (without life-threatening injuries), and 4 were unharmed.
Media reports previously mentioned that around 4:40 p.m. on May 4th, a sudden severe storm hit the Liu Guang River area of the Baili Gallery in Xinren Township, Qiandongnan Prefecture, Bijie City. This storm caused four tourist boats to capsize. Of these, two boats were in operation, one carrying 38 passengers and 2 crew members, and the other with 35 passengers and 2 crew members. Additionally, there were 7 boat staff members on the two boats that had docked.
At the time of the incident, a sudden rainstorm hit the upstream area of the Liu Chong River East Wind Storage Zone, accompanied by hail and strong winds, causing the water level to rise rapidly. With localized wind speeds reaching level 9 and poor visibility due to heavy rain and hail, the situation became extremely challenging.
Some tourists who were on the boat at the time of the accident mentioned that the weather suddenly changed, and visibility might have been only around one meter. The captain and assistant captain of the boat they were on decided to turn back, eventually securing the boat on a reef.
It is worth noting that at 2:40 p.m. that day, the Qiandongnan City Meteorological Observatory had issued an orange hail warning, clearly indicating the possibility of hail disasters within the next 6 hours. However, the tourist boats in the area continued normal operations without implementing temporary cessation or evacuation measures. It was observed during the rescue operation that some of the passengers who fell into the water were not wearing life jackets.
Mr. Li, one of the passengers interviewed by the media, mentioned that the tourist boat he was on had two levels, with the lower deck for seating and the upper deck for sightseeing. He stated that during the incident, “basically no one on the lower deck was wearing a life jacket,” with only the passengers on the upper deck, as required, wearing life jackets.
The boat involved belonged to an agricultural passenger transport company in Guiyang, with a capacity of 40 individuals and no overloading.
According to insiders, the operating company of the implicated tourist boat had been previously ordered by local authorities to rectify safety management issues last year, including inadequate lifesaving equipment and a lack of emergency plans, but the effectiveness of the rectifications was unsatisfactory.