Hubei News

Heavy fog has suspended the operation of ships travelling through the Qiongzhou Strait off the coast of China's Guangdong province and several cities, including Shanghai, have issued warning advisories, Chinese state media reported on Wednesday.Several ports suspended the flow of traffic starting late Tuesday and the specific time of the resumption of navigation will be determined as sea visibility improves, state broadcaster CCTV news reported.Port cities in the southwestern region of Guangxi…

Schottel supplied main and auxiliary propulsion units for China’s first ice-breaking beacon vessel. Haixun 156, which will perform a wide range of tasks, has recently been launched by the contracted shipyard Wuchang Shipbuilding Industry Group, Hubei Province, China. It was ordered by the Tianjin Maritime Safety Administration (MSA) and is scheduled to enter operation in September 2021.The main propulsion of the beacon vessel includes of a pair of diesel-driven Schottel EcoPellers type SRE 460 (1,800 kW each) featuring a four-bladed 2.4 m-diameter propeller.

Damen Shipyards Group said it has laid the keel for a new crane barge that is going to be delivered in Panama, following award of tender in August last year. The barge is being built at Damen Yichang Shipyard in Hubei Province, China. The shipyard is almost back to full capacity following the recent coronavirus outbreak, with strict safety measures to protect the health and wellbeing of yard workers.The 75- by 32-meter Crane Barge 7532 will succeed, a 77-year old crane still in operation.

A special coating from Japan's Nippon Paint and US-based technology company Corning Inc, has been developed to protect workers from picking up viruses from painted surfaces.Nippon Paint's Antivirus Kids Paint, developed specifically for frontline hospital use, incorporates Corning Guardiant Antimicrobial Particles – a nascent technology designed to safeguard against viruses from adhering to hospital surfaces.Experts estimate that viruses can remain viable on some surfaces for several days…

China's business and travel activities are steadily recovering after being disrupted by the coronavirus outbreak, but rapidly rising infections globally will pose a challenge to the country's broader economic resumption.Nomura estimated in a research report on Monday about 61.6% of the firms hardest hit by the health crisis in China have resumed work as of March 8, and 74.1% in the broader economy.China reported on Monday no locally-transmitted cases of infection on the mainland outside of the central province of Hubei…

Oil prices edged higher on Thursday as investors focused on the possibility of deeper supply cuts from the world's biggest producers, whilst largely shrugging off reports which cut demand forecasts after the coronavirus outbreak in China, the biggest oil importer.Brent crude was up 32 cents, or 0.6%, at $56.11 a barrel by 10:52 a.m. ET (1552 GMT), while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was up 14 cents at $51.31 a barrel.The energy complex was led higher by U.S. gasoline futures…

Japan's military prepared a chartered ferry on Wednesday to use as a quarantine ship that could house hundreds of suspected coronavirus cases as the number of infected people in the country rises.The 17,000 ton Hakuou was docked at the Yokosuka naval base near Tokyo, which is also the home port of the U.S. Navy's Ronald Reagan carrier. If put into service, the ship will initially take up to 94 people, but can accommodate more."Around 300 people could comfortably live on the ship and it has a maximum capacity for 500, although that would mean queues for the baths and other facilities," a Japan Self Defense Force official told Reuters.Preparations aboard the Hakuou come as health authorities placed more than 3…

The Wuhan coronavirus outbreak has placed the shipping industry on high alert amid a rising death toll in China and reports that the fast-spreading illness is reaching new shores.The flu-like coronavirus, first identified in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China on December 31, has killed more than two dozen people in China and is believed to have infected more than 900 worldwide, according to several media reports. Cases have been confirmed in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong, and internationally in travelers returning from China to Japan…

China's two largest shipbuilders are planning to merge, their listed arms said in separate exchange filings on Monday, the latest to join a wave of mergers among state-owned enterprises as the government overhauls the sector.The move by China Shipbuilding Industry Corp (CSIC) and China State Shipbuilding Corp Ltd (CSSC), is subject to approvals from related authorities and there are still many details to be ironed out before the proposal can be finalized, the filings showed.A slew of units belonging to the two companies…

Chinese President Xi Jinping called for achieving high-quality economic growth through developing the Yangtze River economic belt. Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks at a symposium on promoting the development of the Yangtze River economic belt in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province. He stressed the importance of enhancing reform and innovation, strategic coordination as well as planning and guiding in developing the economic belt. "It is a major decision made by the CPC Central Committee and a major strategy concerning overall national development to promote the development of the Yangtze River economic belt," Xi said.

Severe floods are expected on China's Yangtze River this year due to a strong El Nino weather pattern, state media said, raising the risk of deaths and damage to property and crops along the country's longest waterway. The El Nino conditions are the strongest since records collection began in 1951, and resemble a 1998 weather pattern that flooded the river and killed thousands, the official Xinhua news agency said on Friday, citing vice minister of water resources, Liu Ning. "Precipitation in the upper, middle and lower reaches of the river is forecast to be as much as 80 percent more than normal from May to August," Xinhua said. Some Yangtze tributaries had already begun flooding and the flood control and drought relief situation was "extremely severe"…

Since being thrust onto the world stage, residents of a once obscure part of China have rallied round to help those affected by the sinking of a cruise ship, an outpouring of kindness in a country more used to worrying about a decline in public morals. The 1.5 million people of Jianli, which sits on a bend of the mighty Yangtze River in the central province of Hubei, have offered free food, car rides and even hair-dressing services to the relatives, rescuers, officials and reporters who have rushed there after the ship carrying more than 450 people sank in a storm on Monday. Residents have tied bright yellow scarves to their arms, car mirrors, buildings and gates to show solidarity with those impacted by the disaster.

Nearly 400 bodies are recovered from a Chinese ship that capsized on the Yangtze River. Only 14 survivors, one of them the captain, were found after the ship carrying 456 people sank on Monday night. Disaster teams found hundreds more bodies overnight and on Saturday morning after pulling the overturned river cruise boat upright with cranes and gradually raising it up from the currents of the river. Jiang Zhao, general manager of the company which operated the Eastern Star, bowed in apology for the disaster during an interview with state media on Friday, saying they would "fully" cooperate with the investigation. Authorities have attributed the capsizing of the river cruise ship Monday to a storm but also have placed the captain and first engineer under police custody.

Huge cranes righted the Eastern Star, the capsized Chinese cruise ship, but still submerged in water. The next step would be to lift it. Authorities said they would search every cabin, the official news agency Xinhua reported. The death toll from the cruise ship that capsized on the Yangtze River has climbed to 82, state media said, as authorities began righting the vessel and said there was no chance of finding anyone else alive. Xu Chengguang, a spokesperson with the Ministry of Transport, said at a press conference on Thursday night that chances of finding more survivors are fading. "Generally speaking, there is no chance of more survivors," he said, adding that it was time to start operation to right the ship, which will speed up the search process.

Chinese authorities began late on Thursday to right a cruise ship that capsized on the Yangtze River, after divers sent to search for survivors found no signs of life inside. With only 14 survivors found, including the captain and chief engineer, since the ship carrying 456 people overturned during a freak tornado on Monday night, the rescue mission has now become an operation to recover hundreds of bodies. "In a situation in which the overall judgment is that there is no chance of people being alive, we could start the work of righting the boat," transport ministry spokesman Xu Chengguang told a news conference. State television confirmed that the righting operation had begun.

President calls meeting of top body to discuss disaster; rescue operation to start righting ship. China has pledged that there would be "no cover-up" of an investigation into the sinking of a cruise ship on the Yangtze River, which has left 75 people dead and over 370 missing, as angry families  gathered near the rescue site to demand answers. Chinese authorities will start righting the ship at 8 p.m. (1200 GMT) on Thursday so rescuers could "search for the missing persons in the shortest possible time and give maximum protection to the dignity of the deceased", state news agency Xinhua said, citing the transport ministry. Earlier on Thursday…

Dozens of people broke through a police cordon on Wednesday as they marched towards the site of a sunken cruise ship in the Yangtze River to demand news of missing relatives. Rescuers searched for more than 400 missing people, many of them elderly, but hopes were fading of finding more survivors from the worst shipping disaster in modern Chinese history. Only 14 people, including the ship's captain, have been found alive since the ship capsized in a tornado on Monday night with 456 people on board. Just 29 bodies have been recovered. Frustrated by the scarcity of information coming from local authorities, about 80 family members hired a bus to take them from Nanjing to Jianli county in Hubei, an eight-hour journey. They started walking towards the rescue site late on Wednesday night.

Relatives of more than 400 people missing after a cruise ship capsized on China's Yangtze River were hoping for a "miracle", as authorities said they were racing against time to find any survivors. Divers pulled three people alive from inside an overturned cruise ship and searched for other survivors, state media said, giving some small hope to an apparently massive tragedy with well over 400 people still missing on the Yangtze River. The disaster is one of the country's worst ever shipping accidents, but authorities are following a familiar playbook of media control and online censorship, say independent observers. Eighteen are confirmed dead and over 400 are still missing.

Viking River Cruises (www.vikingrivercruises.com) set a world record with the christening of 10 new Viking Longships. “Today is a proud day for Viking and for river cruising. We are honored to showcase 10 of our revolutionary new Longships and to have had such a celebrated group of women helping us christen them,” said Torstein Hagen, Chairman of Viking Cruises. Guests at the christening ceremony enjoyed remarks by each godmother and a presentation on the growth of river cruising by Hagen.

An intermodal shipping line connecting the Yangtze River city of Luzhou in Sichuan province and Wuhan in Hubei province, thence on to Taiwan will be launched by the end of this year, reports Xinhua. With the new service, Sichuan products, such as auto parts, mechanical or electronic products, will be shipped to Wuhan on smaller vessels and then be loaded onto larger near-sea ships for Taiwan, moving goods nearly four times faster door to door. Luzhou port, being the only river port in the region to offer sea-rail intermodal service, is an important port for trade cargo in the mid-west region. Last year, it handled 135,200 TEU, taking up 84 per cent of Sichuan's total. Source: Xinhua

China's biggest energy firm PetroChina is reviewing its multi-billion-dollar push to produce liquefied natural gas (LNG) to fuel trucks and ships in place of diesel, shutting two major gas liquefaction plants, sources said. Seen just a year ago as a fast-growing profit engine, PetroChina unit Kunlun Energy Co Ltd is now reconsidering its investment in the niche business after being wrongfooted by rising costs and China's slower economic growth, two sources with direct knowledge of the situation said. China, which controls energy prices to curb inflation, has announced hikes in wholesale natural gas prices totalling 33 percent since mid-2013 as part of its long-term market reforms.

A passenger ship carrying 458 people sank in the Yangtze River in central China after encountering what the rescued captain said was a storm and strong winds, the government’s Xinhua News Agency reported. The ship, which departed from the eastern Chinese city Nanjing and is bound for Chongqing Municipality in southwest China, sank "within one or two minutes" after being caught in a cyclone, according to the ship's captain and chief engineer. The accident occurred at the Damazhou waterway in the middle reaches of Yangtze River, according to the Changjiang Maritime Safety Administration (MSA). The MSA and Changjiang Waterway have begun rescue the rescue mission and have saved eight people so far, including the captain and the chief engineer.

Ship capsizes in "tornado" on southern stretch of Yangtze. Rescuers fought bad weather on Tuesday as they searched for more than 400 people, many of them elderly Chinese tourists, missing after a cruise boat was buffeted by a freak tornado and capsized on the Yangtze River. The accident on Monday night is likely to end up as China's worst shipping disaster in almost 70 years. Divers and other rescue workers pulled five people they found trapped in the upturned hull of the four-deck Eastern Star, a fraction of the 458 people state media reported were on board when the ship capsized. Distraught relatives of some of the passengers scuffled with officials in the city of Shanghai, where many of those on board booked their trips, angry about what they said was a lack of information.