China has dispatched a 140-member frogman team and five helicopters to help in search and rescue after a passenger ship carrying 458 people sank in the Yangtze River Monday night.

The capsized ferry, called Dongfangzhixing, or Eastern Star, sank around 9:28 p.m. after being caught in a cyclone in the Yangtze River in central province of Hubei.

On Tuesday, the Chinese Navy sent diving forces to the site of the ferry accident to search for the missing. The team is composed of soldiers from the navy's fleets in the North Sea, East China Sea, and South China Sea, as well as students of the Naval University of Engineering.

In addition, five helicopters were dispatched from Beijing and Hubei's provincial capital of Wuhan on Tuesday morning, along with an IL-76 transport plane.

Another three helicopters are awaiting orders to depart from Wuhan.

Carrying 406 passengers, five travel agency workers and 47 crew members, the ship was heading from Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province, to southwest China's Chongqing city.

Thirteen of the 458 people on board the capsized ship had been rescued as of 11 a.m. on Tuesday, according to the Ministry of Transport.