IT ALL HAPPENED SO QUICKLY
However, the rain began to get heavier and heavier, and was pounding on the windows. Wu and his wife lay on the bed and he held her tightly.
"She was so scared, but I pretended to be calm, I didn't want her to get upset. But I knew, deep down, something was wrong."
The wind had whipped up into a storm by 8 p.m., and the rain was getting louder, hitting the windows like staccato rhythm beaten by a drummer.
Around 9 a.m., staff were running up and down the corridors shouting:"Close the windows! Push the beds against the doors to avoid getting wet."
Wu followed their instructions and went back to his anxious wife.
"Then things began to fall over, so I began to pick them up."
While his back was turned his wife fell off the bed and landed on the floor. Suddenly, everything in the room began to roll toward the door, including his distraught wife.
"I could feel my feet slipping from beneath me, but the bed I was by stayed in place. So, I stretched out my hands to my wife but our fingers never met, she was thrown against the wall," he said.
"Then the rug struck me on my head and I knew the ship must have capsized," he said. But he had no time to think, water began filling the cabin and the force of it pushed him toward the windows.
"I fumbled with the latch on the the windows, and to my relief, they opened. Then the water forced me out of the cabin," he said.
"It all happened within a minute."
MIRACULOUS SURVIVAL
Wu managed to scramble on to the bottom of the upturned ship. Four other people were also there, his wife was nowhere to be seen.
The group could feel that the ship was still sinking beneath them. There was no other option; they must swim to safety.
"It was raining, the wind was really strong and it was so cold. If we had waited we would have lost what little energy we had. We had to swim while we still had the strength."
Seeing what he thought were lights on the shore, Wu swan toward the shore, the four others following him.
The current kept pushing Wu in all directions, but he persevered and, 20 minutes later, he reached the shore. He looked around him, he was alone.
Wang Xiaobin, a ship worker, was in a boat with several colleagues when they heard frantic sounds outside and went to investigate. They found an old man, panic-stricken and soaked to the bone.
After hearing about Wu's ordeal, Wang called the police and told them that a ship had capsized.
Not long after, the four people Wu had met on the upturned hull of the cruise ship were brought onto Wang's boat. All five were transferred to a ship sent by the maritime authorities that was carrying two other survivors.
There was no sign of Wu's wife or his six friends.
"The windows saved me. Those windows I opened and closed, and looked out of so many times during that trip," he said.
The Eastern Star cruise ship capsized on Monday night in the Yangtze River during a tornado. Of the more than 450 people on the ship, 14 have survived, 77 have been confirmed dead, while the others remain missing.
