A 600-word essay on a recent shipwreck in the Yangtze River

Reflections on the Yangtze River Shipwreck

Yesterday morning, we were surprised to learn that a luxury cruise ship on the Yangtze River, carrying more than 400 tourists, including 458 staff members, was in Jianli, Hubei Capsized everywhere. As of last night, only a dozen crew members and tourists had been rescued, and the lives of other passengers are still unknown. But we have already seen on the news video that the capsized boat was floating in the water with its bottom upside down. If there were any passengers lingering there, their lives would probably be in danger.

According to officials, the cause of the Yangtze River shipwreck incident was that a tornado of magnitude 12 or above occurred in the area at that time, which blew down the ship's hull. What the specific situation is, we still don’t know. But there is one phenomenon worth mentioning: As we all know, communication is now very developed. Not to mention the kind of luxury cruise ship, just ordinary people, almost everyone has a mobile phone. Almost every mobile phone has instant messaging software such as QQ and WeChat installed. In other words, if people now encounter any situation, they will spread the word about their situation in a timely manner. However, in the Yangtze River shipwreck incident, we saw a very primitive situation: before the shipwreck, almost no tourists or crew members could call the police or ask for help from their relatives or relevant departments. According to reports, the first report about the sunken ship was that the captain and crew swam to the shore before verbally informing others. In other words, in this shipwreck incident, all modern high-tech equipment such as radar, radio, weather forecast, mobile phone communications, text messages, QQ, WeChat, etc., had no effect! We feel sad about this. It turns out that the forecast and warning systems and numerous instant communication channels that we humans are so proud of now are so vulnerable to the attack of nature!

Woohoo! Proud human beings, you should wake up and stop being arrogant. In nature, you humans are still very small and insignificant! Let’s all respect nature! Sad