JIANLI (China), June 5 — On the main Chinese state television network yesterday night, a news anchor read out pronouncements that President Xi Jinping and the Communist Party’s other six leaders had made at a meeting that day.
Efforts to rescue any survivors among the 345 people still missing from a capsized cruise ship on the Yangtze River in central China were to proceed with “urgency.” Officials were to “empathise with the suffering of family members” and “do a good job of placating them” to “maintain social stability.”
Though the leaders were seeking to project empathy, the words were typical stilted party talk, and the broadcast did not even show footage of the meeting. Other images, ones from the shipwreck site near the town of Jianli, revealed just as little — there was no sign of the more than 200 divers who officials say are searching for survivors, heavy machinery being put into place or experts testing the hull.
China’s economic boom has propelled the nation into the global spotlight. But crises like the one on the Yangtze this week reveal the party’s abiding reluctance to embrace transparency, even with people’s emotions at a fever pitch, and amid growing international scrutiny of one of Asia’s worst maritime disasters in decades.
At news conferences in Jianli, officials have said little about the odds of finding survivors now, 72 hours after the Oriental Star capsized, or why the ship’s captain decided to push forward into heavy winds and rain Monday night when other boats had dropped anchor. (The captain and chief engineer survived and have been detained.) There is no talk of exactly where bodies have been found, and neither the government nor the cruise ship company has released a passenger list. In Jianli, Chinese reporters have had as hard a time getting relevant information as foreign journalists.
In the middle of this information vacuum, about 1,200 family members seeking answers have converged on the remote town of Jianli in Hubei province, according to an official count. It is this kind of massing that has led to trouble for the Communist Party before, during other disasters — an inflection point when those with a stake in the outcome and ordinary Chinese who sympathise with them begin to doubt how the nation’s leaders are handling the situation.
“There’s still no word about my parents,” a woman in her 20s from Jiangsu province said yesterday. The woman, who gave only her surname, Zhao, said that she arrived late Tuesday in Jianli and that she and the relatives of other missing passengers had to go to the riverbank the next day on their own — first by taxi, then by hitchhiking from police checkpoint to police checkpoint on the heavily guarded road to the main rescue site.
“I finally got in touch today with people from the government,” she said, after having had no contact with authorities since the ship capsized.
Families have expressed anger and frustration with the slow response from the government, the ship operator and the travel agencies involved, with people like Zhao saying they had not been formally contacted or informed about the investigation that the official Xinhua news agency said the leadership had ordered.
Most of the passengers lived in eastern provinces, and some of their relatives have made the long journey to Jianli, traveling by cars or chartered buses. Others have organised support groups online and shared photographs of friends and family members, as well as pictures of the journey that passengers had posted online before the accident.
State news media reports yesterday indicated that hope for finding more survivors was waning and that the rescue efforts would soon turn to the recovery of bodies. Today morning, crews using cranes and other machinery righted the ship, and the Ministry of Transportation said the decision to do that was made after it had been determined that it was unlikely any other survivors were aboard.
Earlier, workers had cut three holes into the hull in what China Central Television called the final attempts to find survivors before righting the ship.
Late Thursday, Xinhua published an interview with Zhang Shunwen, the ship’s captain, who, along with the chief engineer, had spoken to a reporter on Tuesday and Wednesday, while both were under detention.
Zhang said that on Monday night, a wind measuring 3 to 4 on the Beaufort scale — a gentle to moderate breeze — blew from south to north. He steered the ship north to travel with the wind. But the wind suddenly intensified and he lost control of the ship. He said that not even a full left rudder could handle the wind.
The chief engineer, Yang Zhongquan, said that after he returned from a deck patrol of one or two minutes, he discovered that water was flooding the engine room. Then the lights went off. “At that time, it seemed the ship had already capsized,” he said, according to Xinhua.
In Jianli, officials have begun lining up special coffins, decorated with flowers, in anticipation of the huge numbers of bodies that are expected to be found in the days ahead. The authorities are aware of the potential for excruciating scenes; many of the bodies may have decomposed after being underwater for days. The confirmed death toll increased to 97 today, state news agencies reported.
When news of the disaster spread Tuesday, families in Shanghai descended on a travel agency that had put tourists on the Oriental Star. After the police directed the frustrated relatives to a local government petition bureau, the family members confronted officials, crying, yelling and pleading for answers. One group tore down a government barricade.
“We have a right to tell our story,” said a woman with the surname Wang, after government officers asked her to stop giving interviews. “This is our freedom. We’ve lost our relatives.”
Each family had its own story to tell. The cruise along the Yangtze was supposed to have been a special one for Yang Yunlou and his wife, Chen Cailian, who were traveling with their 7-year-old granddaughter, Chenlin, visiting historic sites along a route that was carrying them west, toward the huge Three Gorges Dam.
The couple, both in their 60s, had paid for a first-class cabin on the Oriental Star, which set off from Nanjing with 456 people. At 9.05pm Monday, the couple spoke by cellphone with relatives back home in Shanghai. Everything seemed fine. Nothing was said about any high winds or rainstorms.
But less than 25 minutes later, a violent storm capsized the ship. Only 14 of those onboard are believed to have survived. One of the survivors said he swam until dawn.
The 442 people now presumed dead include Yang, Chen and their granddaughter, one of the youngest passengers on a ship that was filled mostly with retirees in their 60s and 70s.
“Yesterday was children’s day, and today, I have no idea whether my child is alive or not,” said Tang Xia, the girl’s mother, sobbing Tuesday afternoon at the government bureau in Shanghai. “I’m waiting desperately for any updates, or any official who can talk with me.”
One woman, Chen Guiyu, said in a telephone interview yesterday that three of her four sisters and two brothers-in-law had joined a large tour group for the cruise, which was to last about 10 days.
Her eldest sister, Chengying, had just celebrated her 70th birthday, and the travellers seemed pleased with the ship’s accommodations. They posted photographs on the social networking app WeChat, showing them at various sites and even washing clothes along the river.
“I never heard there were any concerns about the weather,” Chen said. “All they told us was how luxurious the ship was, and how happy they were. My sister and I replied to them via WeChat, and said, ‘Enjoy yourself in this rare get-together.’ “ She said her five relatives were among the passengers confirmed dead.
In Shanghai, Chen Lindi and her family were preparing to travel to Hubei province to identify the bodies of her relatives — her sister and brother-in-law, Chen Cailian and Yang, and their granddaughter Chenlin — once they are recovered.
Chenlin loved Hello Kitty, so her mother is carrying a Hello Kitty hair clip and a princess dress. She clings to the hope that Chenlin and her grandparents survived.
“She was going to perform an Indian dance, and play the guzheng,” a traditional Chinese string instrument, said Chen Lindi. “She had rehearsed for the Indian dance before leaving.” — The New York Times
