Court of public opinion too quick to condemn

Rescue teams continue using all measures possible to rescue anyone still alive on the Eastern Star, the cruise ship carrying 456 people that capsized in Yangtze River on Monday evening. News update show 14 people have been saved and the whole nation prays the number will miraculously rise.

Among those that survived was the captain, and he has been receiving a lot of vitriol from the public. Many netizens blame the captain, 52-year-old Zhang Shunwen, for having survived while passengers and crew members died; some have said he should be charged, while some asked why he did not follow the example of Lee Joon-seok, the captain of the South Korean ferry MV Sewol that overturned last April with the loss of 304 lives, who committed suicide after being sentenced to 36 years in prison for negligence.

Such comments are irrational when the cause of the accident is still not yet known. From the information available, blaming the captain for the disaster is jumping to a conclusion without evidence.