There can be few ordeals worse than not knowing whether a loved one is dead or alive. Not knowing simply because someone won't tell you does not seem humanly possible.
Yet that is what has happened to relatives of miners who either perished or survived in a flooded Shanxi mine, because the authorities have refused to publish a list of more than 100 who were saved and are now scattered across the country in hospitals. Some of the less seriously injured have been able to convey news of their survival to their families by persuading medical staff to allow them to use their mobile phones. Many are too ill to do so. One family's prayers were answered when a brother appeared on a hospital balcony after they shouted his name from outside. Others seeking news have been driven away by the authorities.
It is scarcely believable. The failure to put relatives out of their misery by providing them with information about their loved ones is quickly turning a survival miracle into a scandal. The flooding of the mine had initially appeared to be an unmitigated human tragedy. But the surprise rescue of men who had survived for days in terrible conditions underground made it a triumph of the human spirit. It ranks in its own way with the impressive response to the Sichuan earthquake disaster in May 2008. Even public expressions of distaste at the way state media seized on the rescue to glorify the Communist Party and the government did not detract from nationwide jubilation and relief. But the inhuman insensitivity to the feelings of relatives who hope for the best and fear the worst surely does. The fates of their loved ones have become state secrets.
What could the motive for this be? Could it be that local officials are seeking to cover up the full extent of the tragedy, or avoid awkward questions about safety issues? It seems that, having turned the rescue into a party political media event, they now want to control interviews with survivors.
Institutionalised state control over people's lives and freedoms has its boundaries. The mainland authorities have crossed them. Relatives must be told the fate of their loved ones immediately.
