Deadly waterway disasters of the 21st century

Emergency crews on Tuesday were racing to reach hundreds of people thought to be trapped inside the hull of a capsized cruise ship in southern China. The capsizing of the Eastern Star on the Yangtze River is thought to be China's worst boat tragedy in decades.

• Chinese cruise ship sinks in Yangtze River with 458 aboard, rescue continues

Read about a few other similardisasters on rivers and at sea around the world in recent years.

700 migrants die in Mediterranean

As many as 700 migrants from the Middle East and Africa drowned about 100 kilometres off the Libyan coast on April 18, 2015 in what was thought to be the worst disaster on record involving a vessel used for human smugglingin the Mediterranean Sea.

• Europe tut-tuts while African migrants die on its doorstep

A Bangladeshi survivor told Italian prosecutors on April 19 that 950 people had been aboard, including hundreds who had been locked in the hold by smugglers. Another survivor, the Tunisian captain, was arrested by Italian authorities on homicide charges.

Overall, since 2000, the International Organization of Migration estimates that over 22,000 migrants have lost their lives trying to reach Europe.

Students perish on South Korean ferry

Most of the more than 300 people who died when the ferry Sewol sank off Jindo, South Korea were students who attended Danwon High School in the city of Ansan. They were travelling to the resort island of Jeju on a school trip when the ship went down on the morning of April 16, 2014.

Kim Han-Sik, CEO of the company operating the ferry, was convicted of manslaughter and embezzlement after a court found hehad routinelyallowed the ferry to be overloaded. He recently had his jail sentence reduced from 10 to seven years. The captain, who was among the first to escape, was sentenced to life in prison on murder charges. The company's billionaire owner was found dead in a field, weeks after the disaster.

Philippine ship capsizes in typhoon

The capsizing of the MV Princess of the Stars on June 21, 2008 occurred as Typhoon Fengshen pounded the Philippines and claimed nearly 700 lives.Only 57 aboard survived.

Relatives of the victims questioned why the ship was allowed to leave Manila the night before for a 20-hour trip to Cebu while the storm was approaching.

Scenic B.C. journey turns tragic

On March 22, 2006, the Queen of the North ferry struck a remote island off the B.C. coast and sank, killing passengers Gerald Foisy and Shirley Rosette of 100 Mile House, B.C., and sending dozens of other people scrambling for safety.

The vessel had left Prince Rupert on a 15-hour journey to Port Hardy at the northern end of Vancouver Island, a scenic route popular with cruise ships navigating the Inside Passage. It ran aground on Gil Island in Wright Sound 135 kilometres into what was supposed to be a 450-kilometre trip.

Navigating officer Karl Lilgert was accused of failing to make a planned course change just before the grounding and was convicted of two counts of causing death by criminal negligence. Last month, the Supreme Court of Canada decided it would not hear an appeal of his four-year sentence.

Costa Concordia captain abandons ship

While the partial sinking of the Costa Concordia after it ran aground on Jan. 13, 2013 was not the deadliest of 21stcenturymaritime disasters, it was notable for the captain's shoddy behaviour.

Francesco Schettinofirsttook the Italian cruise ship off course in an apparent effort to show off by bringing it closer to the Italian island of Giglio. He then abandoned ship when it smashed into a reef, an Italian court later heard.The vessel quickly began taking on water. In the slow-going nighttime evacuation, 32 people lost their lives.

Storm overwhelms crowded Russian boat

On July 10, 2011, the Russian tourist boat Bulgaria sank on the Volga River during a storm. The overloaded boat had space for 120 people, but carried as many as 208 people when it listed to starboard during the trip, allowinga large wave to wash over the deck.

The vessel sank in just eight minutes. Still, 79 people who managed to jump or were thrown from the deck survived. The disaster killed 112 people, including about 30 children who were taken to a room below deck for a scheduled play date shortly before the vessel went down.

Egyptian ferry burns before sinking

The ferry Al Salam Boccaccio 98 sank in the Red Sea en route from Duba, Saudi Arabia to Safaga in southern Egypt on Feb. 3, 2006. The disaster claimed the lives of 1,034 people. Another 388 who were on board survived.

Three years later, the Egyptian owner of the ferry who fled to London after the sinking was sentenced in absentia to a prison term on charges of involuntary manslaughter. Mamdouh Ismail was accused of negligence in light of a fire that broke out in the ferry's vehicle bay. An Egyptian court ruling late last year dropped the seven-year prison sentence, citing a statute of limitations.

Overloaded boat in Uganda tips

A boat carrying mostly Congolese refugees capsized near the shores of Lake Albert in Uganda close to the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo on March 24, 2014. Officials said 251 people died when the overloaded boat tipped.

About 50 others survived the sinking. The boat, with a capacity for 80 people, was taking the refugees back to their home country.