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Yangtze cruise ship sinking
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Locals and relatives of the victims hold a candlelight vigil for the victims on the stricken cruise ship. Photo: EPA

New | Relatives anxious to bid final farewell to dead in China's Eastern Star cruise ship disaster

Family members negotiating with officials to allow them to conduct mourning rituals

Grieving families on Friday demanded to be allowed to perform rituals this weekend for the hundreds feared dead in a capsized ship on the Yangtze River.

The demands came as recovery crews lifted the top four floors of the Eastern Star from the water and started searching its cabins for more bodies.

They did not find as many bodies underwater as expected with the lifting of the floors, Xinhua reported. As of 7pm, 103 bodies had been recovered, with 14 survivors, CCTV reported.

In all, 456 people were on board when the ship went down in the Jianli section of the river on Monday night.

"We want [the government] to organise for us to carry out mourning rituals on the riverside because it will be soon," one relative said. , or the seventh day after death, is an important day to commemorate the departed in Chinese tradition.

The relatives said they were negotiating with local authorities and willing to conduct the rituals away from the recovery site to avoid hindering the operation.

After righting the ship on Friday morning, workers started pumping water from the vessel.

The authorities are using DNA tests to match the victims with relatives, but many families said they wanted to try to identify the bodies using photos first.

Dozens of relatives from Jiangsu and Shandong provinces petitioned the authorities to let them take the bodies of their relatives home.

They also questioned if stormy weather at the time was the sole cause of the accident.

But the ship was not equipped with two crucial data recording systems, media reports said.

Xinhua also said on Tuesday that the Eastern Star did not have surveillance cameras that automatically transmit data to shore via 3G networks.

Professor You Qinghua , from Shanghai Maritime University, said investigators might have to rely on the ship's engine logbook to find out what happened but there was no word on where it was.

The transport ministry requires that the chief engineer take the logbook with him when the captain decides to abandon ship. The captain and chief engineer both survived the incident and are in police custody.

Dongfang's legal representative Zhai Zhao on Friday bowed in apology in an interview with China News Service.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Relatives anxious to bid final farewell to the dead
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