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 Only 14 survivors, one of them the captain, have been found after
the ship carrying 456 overturned in a freak tornado on Monday night.
A total of 103 bodies have been found.
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.
"You view the common people as if we are all your enemy. We are tax
payers. We support the government. You had better change your notion
of this relationship. You are here to serve us. You need to be
humane," Xia said, before being escorted out.
Police then kept reporters back behind a closed gate while they
moved away relatives and passersby on the street outside.
About 1,200 relatives have converged on Jianli county in Hubei
province where the disaster happened.
"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". "NO COVER-UP"
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.
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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.
(Additional reporting by Megha Rajagopalan and Kim Kyung-Hoon and
Engen Tham in SHANGHAI; Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Paul
Tait and Jeremy Laurence)
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