CHERYOMUSHKY, RUSSIA - "Why is there so little information? There can't just be 12 dead!" screamed a voice. "Why has no-one else been found in the last 20 hours?" shouted another.

Many loved ones of those still missing say they have yet to be told the whole truth by the authorities about the accident this week at Russia's biggest hydroelectric power station.

Sixty-two employees of the Sayano-Shushenskaya plant in southern Siberia are still missing, over two days after a tragedy that is already confirmed to have killed 12 people.

But rescuers have insisted they have not given up hope of finding them alive in the flooded wreckage of the turbine hall that was shattered after being engulfed by a flood of water.

Dozens of relatives met with officials from the emergencies ministry at a nearby cultural centre, in an encounter marked by anger, frustration and fears that there may no longer be reason to hope.

"We don't want secrets! If my son is dead then fine, tell me. I went to the morgue last night and they wouldn't tell me anything," said a man who gave his name as Viktor.

"I know my husband is still alive. There is a cushion of air there where he could be. Why haven't you drained the water there?" demanded Lena Petrovna, wife of one of the missing at the plant.

Alexander Kresan, head of the ministry of emergency sitiuations search teams for Siberia, sought to explain that all would be done for as long as there was a chance of finding anyone alive.

"We are searching for the living. That's our profession. We are listening for sounds," he said. "We are not resting one minute. I have 16 divers working day and night shifts.

"We understand there are other places where people could have hidden, we are going through everything step by step. We brought in special robots and equipment."

But his comments could not placate everyone. "Show us the robots so we know it's true!" shouted a woman in the front row amid screams and wails.

The same anger marked the first funerals of four of the 12 people who have been confirmed killed in the tragedy which were held at a cemetery in the nearby town of Mayno.

"You need a whole section of the cemetery to be set apart for the dead. I don't think anyone is alive anymore," bitterly remarked Tatyana Nikitinskaya, an employee of the power station who was attending the funeral.

She said that one of those buried, Roma Shchin, had only been on Monday's fatal shift by chance.

"His wife was supposed to give birth on Monday. But his daughter was born on Tuesday and he did not live to see her.

"They have tried to make everything look okay but I think many more people were killed," added Vladislav Sheshakov, whose son survived the tragedy. "This is what our nation is like."

For other workers at the massive plant, anxiety about the fate of friends and colleagues mixed with relief that they had not been in the turbine room on the fateful morning.

"It was a big shock I have a lot of friends there. It could have been me on that shift. Sometimes people want to switch their schedules," said Alexander Kuznetsov, 27, who has spent five years working at the station.