Hundreds missing, many elderly tourists, after ship capsizes on China's Yangtze River

Rescuers searched on Tuesday for more than 400 people, many of them elderly Chinese tourists, missing after a cruise boat was hit by a freak tornado and capsized on the Yangtze River in what may become China's worst shipping disaster in nearly 70 years.

Battling bad weather, divers and other rescue workers pulled five people they found trapped in the upturned hull of the four-deck Eastern Star, a small fraction of the 458 people state media said were on board when the ship capsized on Monday night.

Rescue operations appeared extended late into Tuesday night with paramilitary vehicles, dozens of police and soldiers as well as medical and meteorological trucks surrounding the site.

Soldiers set up periodic roadblocks along a muddy path, allowing only official vehicles into the area in the central province of Hubei.

At the main hospital in the county of Jianli, police guarded the door of a room where survivors were being treated and blocked reporters from trying to enter. Three survivors were placed in the general ward while the rest were in intensive care, according to a nurse.

Distraught relatives of some of the passengers scuffled with officials in the city of Shanghai, where many of those on board had booked their trips, angry about what they said was a lack of information.