Outpouring of grief in Beijing as relatives told airliner lost at sea
Print Edition
RELATIVES shrieked and sobbed uncontrollably. Men and women were on the point of collapse, held up by loved ones.
Their grief came pouring out after 17 days of waiting for definitive word on the fate of the passengers and crew of the missing Malaysia Airlines jet.
Some 50 relatives had gathered at a hotel near Beijing’s airport to hear the news that there was no longer any doubt that the plane had been lost somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean and that there were no survivors.
Afterward, they filed out of a conference room in scenes of heart-wrenching grief.
One woman collapsed and fell on her knees, crying “My son! My son!”
Medical teams arrived at the Metro Park Lido Hotel with several stretchers and one elderly man was carried out of the conference room on one of them, his face covered by a jacket.
Minutes later, a middle-aged woman was taken out on another stretcher, her face ashen and her eyes staring off into a distance.
Most relatives refused to speak to reporters and some lashed out at them in anger, urging journalists not to film the scene.
Security guards restrained one man as he kicked a TV cameraman and shouted: “Don’t film. I’ll beat you to death!”
Wang Zhen, whose father and mother, Wang Linshi and Xiong Yunming, were on board the flight as part of a group of Chinese artists touring Malaysia, heard the announcement on television at another hotel where he had been staying.
He said some of the relatives had received a text message in English from the airline advising of the findings to be announced in a late-night news conference by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.
Najib said that an unprecedented analysis of satellite data concluded that the plane, which disappeared on March 8 with 239 people on board while on a night flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, must have ended in the sea far from any possible landing site.
“My mind is a mess right now. Can we talk later?” he said in a telephone interview.
Nan Jinyan, whose brother-in-law Yan Ling, a medical company engineer, was on board the flight on a business trip, said she was prepared for the worst when she heard that the Malaysian prime minister would be holding a news conference.
“This is a blow to us, and it is beyond description,” Nan said.
In Kuala Lumpur, screaming could be heard from inside the Hotel Bangi Putrajaya, where some of the families of passengers had been given rooms.
Selamat Omar, father of a 29-year-old aviation engineer who was on the flight, said in a telephone interview that Malaysia Airlines had not yet briefed the families on whether they will be taken to Australia.
He said they expected more details today.
“We accept the news of the tragedy. It is fate,” Selamat said.
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