Abstract:The extraordinarily serious capsizing accident of the cruise ship, named Dongfangzhixing (Eastern Star), occurred at around 21:30 BT 1 June 2015, in the Jianli (Hubei Province) section of the Yangtze River. Based on the results of the wind damage survey with satellite and radar data analyses, this paper presents that the high wind damage was caused by downbursts and one likely tornado over the area surrounding the event occurring site at around 21:00-21:40 BT 1 June, with the most intense Beaufort scale more than level 12, and the characteristics of discontinuous and multiscale spatial distribution and very small spatio temporal scale of the most severe wind damage. The wind damage over the northern land part of the surrounding area (Shunxingcun, Laotai Deep Water Wharf, Sitaicun, Xingouzi) affected by one mesocyclone is more significant than the southern land part behind the gust front and microbursts. It is determined that one likely tornado occurred at Laotai Deep Water Wharf, and the wind damage at other sites was caused by microbursts based on the radar data and damage survey. The flows in the convective storm causing wind damage have obvious multiscale characteristics, and a number of microburst swathes simultaneously occurred at the woods of Sitaicun located in the northern part of the surrounding area, with alternate spatial distribution of divergence and convergence, displaying a feature of the complicated atmospheric motion in the convective storm. Although mesovortices occur within a microburst, the horizontal scale of convergence within the microburst found in this wind damage survey was only tens of meters and far less than the several kilometer horizontal scale of bookend vortices or mesovortices within a bow echo.