April 2024, Qinhuangdao, Hebei Province, a homemade cruise ship near Taolinkou Reservoir. Screenshot of a web video
At about 11 o'clock on April 13, 2024, tourist Qu Fen came to Taolinkou Village, Lulong County, Qinhuangdao City, Hebei Province, and took a cruise to play in the nearby Qinglong River. She remembers that there were many tourists and the wind was not strong. Unexpectedly, just over three hours later, a deadly gale overturned a pleasure boat and claimed the lives of 12 people.
According to Xinhua News Agency, at around 14:30 on April 13, a boat overturned accident occurred in the waters of the Qinglong River in Taolinkou Village. The accident caused 31 people to fall into the water, and all of them have been rescued through search and rescue, of which 12 have died, 10 have been hospitalized for non-life-threatening treatment, and 9 have returned home safely. According to the China Emergency Management Report, the boat overturned due to windy weather, and the people who fell into the water were tourists, most of whom were elderly and did not wear life jackets.
After a preliminary investigation, it was found that the vessel involved in the accident was a self-made pleasure boat, and was not equipped with lifebuoys, life jackets and other life-saving equipment. The public security department has exercised control over the shipowners and shipwrights. Hebei Province set up an accident investigation team to further investigate the cause of the accident. At present, Qinhuangdao City has carried out a dragnet all-round investigation and rectification of the city's tourism industry.
Villagers make their own boats
The waters of the Qinglong River where the accident occurred are downstream of the Taolinkou Reservoir. "Locals know that this place is beautiful, especially after the gate is opened, (the scenery) is more spectacular, and there are many (sightseeing) boats in operation. A tourist who drove to Taolinkou Village at the end of 2023 said.
She remembers that Taolinkou Village is more than an hour's drive from Qinhuangdao City, and if she wants to take a boat, she will have to drive for more than ten minutes. When she arrived at the boarding point, she didn't see a sign indicating that she could take a boat, only villagers shouting "no boat" on the shore. "There are several families in operation, each with three or four boats. The price is suitable to get on the ship, get off the boat to give money, 20 yuan per person (price) We bargain to 10 yuan per person, no bills. ”
On April 13, 2024, a boat overturned in Qinhuangdao, killing 12 people, which was an illegally modified "black cruise ship". Visual China Diagram
About half a year later, Yang Hao, who lives in a neighboring village in Taolinkou Village, also came to Taolinkou Village to play. He was much closer to that fatal accident. He remembers that at around 2 p.m. on April 13, 2024, he boarded the ship, and the ticket price was still 10 yuan per person, and some ships also provided on-board dining services, selling "big fish stewed in an iron pot and some home-cooked dishes", and the price could reach hundreds of yuan.
He recalled that the boat he was on did not have any company logo, and the bottom was roughly designed to look like a "bamboo raft", but it was powered by an engine at the tail and a tarpaulin at the top.
Wang Ruhai, who runs a restaurant on the banks of the Qinglong River, knows a lot about these types of villagers' homemade boats. He introduced that in the local area, it is a norm to use modified ships and even self-made ships to carry objective light, first weld out the hull with iron sheets, and then use iron rods to prop up a canopy about two meters high, "beautiful shading", so as to carry passengers. The interior area of a self-made boat often reaches 20 square meters, and "it can carry 50 people".
In addition to self-built boats, there is also a plastic bamboo raft boat made by a manufacturer that is also relatively popular. But in Wang Ruhai's view, this kind of bamboo raft boat does not have much draft, and "there are not many people who can stand it", so the villagers generally do not choose to buy this kind of boat, preferring to build it themselves.
After Yang Hao boarded the ship, he found that there were not many tourists on board, only seven or eight people, but there were no life jackets and lifesaving equipment. This has also been confirmed by a number of tourists who have taken a boat in Taolinkou. Qu Fen, a native of Tangshan, came to Taolinkou with a travel agency, and a video she shot showed a modified boat full of 30 or 40 tour group members. There are movable plastic stools on the ship, and passengers sit in three columns, mainly the elderly, and there are also parents with children. There were two crew members on board who were responsible for driving the boat, and no life jackets or life-saving equipment were seen. There were 12 people on another boat next to it, and there were two round tables for eating, "two boats walking side by side".
Yang Hao said that after the boat leaves, it will sail along the river in the direction of the upstream reservoir, and the round-trip journey will take about an hour. He brushed shoulders with the accident. At the end of the tour, after leaving Taolinkou Village, he learned about the capsizing accident.
According to Xinhua News Agency, after the accident, Qinhuangdao City immediately launched a Level II emergency response to emergencies, set up seven working groups including health assistance, emergency rescue, logistics support, and situation investigation, and immediately mobilized emergency, fire protection, water affairs, health, public security and other departments to rush to the scene to carry out search and rescue, medical treatment and other work. The fire rescue team dispatched 31 fire trucks, 144 commanders and fighters, 4 assault boats, and 13 rubber boats to the scene for rescue, and at the same time used drones to conduct a comprehensive search and rescue of the river basin involved. The local authorities immediately sent the wounded to the hospital for full treatment, and formulated a diagnosis and treatment plan with "one person, one policy".
Homemade cruise ship near Taolinkou Reservoir. Screenshot of a web video
There are many potential safety hazards
Wang Ruhai's hotel was only a few hundred meters away from the incident in a straight line, and within half an hour of the incident, he arrived at the scene and helped drag up a few people who had fallen into the water.
He recalls that the wind was very strong and lasted for about two hours, "blowing up the gravel on the ground and hitting his face, which hurts." There were also a number of boats around the place of the incident, some pulling two or three people, while others were parked on the shore and did not move. "It (the ship) went to a different shipping lane, and everyone else went to the north, but it chose to go south. ”
Wang Ruhai explained that the north side of the Qinglong River is a field with a flat terrain, while the south side is a mountain, and the wind direction is more unstable. In addition, the two-meter-high awning on the boat in the incident was "slightly for a ride".
A senior engineer who has been engaged in research on ship performance and other aspects for a long time told Southern Weekend that in the case of strong winds, a tarpaulin drive may indeed cause the ship to capsize, and "holding the wind will cause the moment to roll over to become larger." However, in his opinion, this is by no means the only hidden danger of such homemade pleasure boats.
After watching videos of some cruise ships in Taolinkou Village, he analyzed to a reporter from Southern Weekend that almost none of the tourists on the boats wore life jackets, which was not standardized in terms of management. In terms of hardware, regular river sightseeing boats have a deep draft and a low center of gravity because they are loaded with fuel and various machines in the cabin, while such self-made boats are lighter in weight and have a higher center of gravity than regular sightseeing boats, and they are also prone to roll over.
In addition, he believes that the boat in the video uses a tail hanger, which may only have about ten horsepower, and such a machine can only be used to drive a dinghy with two or three people. In general, the driving power of a regular sightseeing boat needs to reach hundreds of horsepower. "Boats are most afraid of going with the flow, and they need to rely on strong power to withstand the wind and waves to ensure safety. He explained that the use of such a weak power tail hanger, but carrying many passengers, is also a safety hazard in itself. The engineer also added that the boat in the video has a low freeboard and is prone to water on the waves, which can also easily lead to capsizing.
There are also risks associated with the location where the cruise ship is operated. According to the engineer, the river section where the boat is operated is located downstream of the reservoir and the water flow is fast, and operating a boat here is inherently riskier than in a normal river section.
"Sudden gusts of wind have a certain amount of chance. The high center of gravity, the lack of water tightness, the large side wind area, the low freeboard, and the weak power are all causes of rollover. The engineer said that it should not be assumed that the ship that has undergone the ship inspection will be safe in the event of a sudden gust of wind, "in which case it should be stopped and sheltered from the wind."
In fact, it was a business that should have been stopped a long time ago. According to Qinhuangdao News Network, since 2008, the implementation of tourism development projects such as Great Wall folk tourism and landscape tourism has found a new development path for Taolinkou Village. When tourism was booming, there were more than 20 farmhouses in the village. Later, the RV campground settled here again, and there was an endless stream of tourists, and almost every house in the village had a tin boat. In an interview, a local grassroots cadre said that at that time, Taolinkou Village's annual income could reach 17 million yuan, and the villagers could earn 7,000 or 8,000 yuan a day from operating hand-cranked boats.
In 2011, the Taolinkou Dam was raised again, and the upstream of the dam was designated as a national first-class water source protection area. According to the relevant regulations, all tourist facilities upstream of the dam need to be cleaned up, and all farmhouses and restaurants within the protected area must be closed, including cruise ships.
According to the public information of the Lulong County Government, in 2018, Qinhuangdao Haiyi Tourism Development Co., Ltd., which undertook the construction of Taolinkou Scenic Area in Lulong County, Qinhuangdao City, demolished RV campsites, restaurants and other projects, and the scenic spot was closed. After research, the local government decided to revoke the Taolinkou national 2A-level scenic spot grade qualification.
However, the cruise business did not stop.
"I can't stop it. A villager in Taolinkou village said that the cruise ship business has been "stolen for many years, even from the small dam down, and there is no safety awareness at all." He took a boat ride in the village, and also persuaded the boatman to put on life jackets for tourists, but to no avail.
"[I] feel pretty bad right now. After the accident, he told a reporter from Southern Weekend.
(Qu Fen, Yang Hao, Wang Ruhai are pseudonyms)
Southern Weekly reporter Jiang Bowen Southern Weekly interns Ke Yule, Liang Dong, Wu Xintao, Fu Yijing
Editor-in-charge: Tan Chang