Kin angry over China ship mishap

JIANLI: Relatives of passengers missing after a Chinese cruise ship capsized on the Yangtze River expressed agony and anger on Friday after an official admitted there is no hope of finding more survivors, while cranes slowly raised the vessel out of the water.
An irate relative publicly accused the government of treating its people like enemies, as officials struggled to contain public anger over the disaster.
Just 14 of the 456 people, mostly tourists aged over 60, who were on board the “Eastern Star” when it overturned in a storm on Monday have been found alive.
A total of 103 bodies have been found, as floating cranes on Friday began to hoist the vessel where bodies of the more than 340 missing may still be trapped.
Frustration over the lack of information has grown among families of the missing. Seventy-year-old Xia Yunchen burst into a just finished news briefing with senior officials on Friday, screaming and demanding answers.
“Is it necessary to treat the common people, one by one, as if you are facing some kind of formidable foe?” said Xia, whose sister and brother-in-law were aboard the Eastern Star. Xia, from the eastern city of Qingdao, told reporters she had wanted to get into the news conference to hear for herself what the government was saying, and that she wanted an honest investigation because family members doubted the weather was the real cause of the disaster. About 1,200 relatives have converged on Jianli county in Hubei province where the disaster happened.
Police then kept reporters back behind a closed gate while they moved away relatives and passersby on the street outside.
“My most important hope in coming here is still the same - to lay eyes on my mother,” said Zhang Junmin.
Another relative, who asked not to be identified, sent a Reuters reporter a picture from their hotel room showing three police cars parked outside, by way of explaining why they were too nervous to meet.
Aware of the sensitivity of the disaster, the ruling Communist Party’s Politburo Standing Committee, China’s apex of power, called on local authorities to take measures to help grieving families and to “earnestly safeguard social stability.”
On Friday evening, dozens of relatives gathered in front of the crematorium, demanding to be allowed inside. Many carried bouquets of flowers.
The crematorium gates were manned by uniformed police, who initially refused to let them inside. They were later allowed in after foreign reporters arrived on a government-organised bus tour.
Relatives have asked the government to release the names of survivors and the confirmed deaths, and questioned why most of those rescued were crew members.
Some have demanded to know why the boat did not dock in the storm, and how the rescued captain and crew members had time to put on life vests but did not sound any alarm.
Beijing has pledged there would be “no cover-up” in the investigation.
Police have detained the captain and chief engineer for questioning, though authorities have given no details. An initial investigation found the ship was not overloaded and had enough life vests on board.
Rescuers, many from the military, worked through the night to right the four-deck ship. Pictures on state television showed the ship, which had capsized completely, sitting upright in the water. Large dents and gashes scarred its blue roof.
Large barge-mounted cranes began lifting it from the river bed late on Friday afternoon.
More than 200 divers had groped through murky water after cutting through the hull, searching every cabin on board, but found no more survivors.
Rescuers decided to overturn the ship “on the general judgement that there is no possibility of survival,” Xu Chengguang, a Transport Ministry spokesman, told a press conference late on Thursday.
He added Friday that the boat would be raised completely above the water’s surface, allowing rescuers to search through it.
Gao Rufu, whose 62-year-old sister is among the dead, told AFP: “I feel sad, so sad.”
The possible death toll of 442 would make the sinking on the Yangtze river China’s worst shipping disaster in nearly 70 years.
Reports citing witnesses said the boat overturned in under a minute, and weather officials said a freak tornado hit the area at the time.