They got their hearts broken by text message.
Ear-shattering wails and shrieks rang out at a Beijing hotel when relatives of the 153 Chinese passengers aboard still-missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 learned Monday that all hope of finding them alive was gone.
“Malaysia Airlines deeply regrets that we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none on board survived,” the text message read.
“As you will hear in the next hour from Malaysia’s Prime Minister, we must now accept that all evidence suggests the plane went down.”
The families were sent the text message at 9 a.m. — an hour before Malaysia Prime Minister Najik Razak went before the cameras and told the world.
“This is a blow to us, and it is beyond description,” said Nan Jinyan, whose brother-in-law Yan Ling, a medical company engineer, was aboard the doomed flight.
Tears streamed down the face of a nearby woman who collapsed to her knees and yelled, “My son! My son!”
Another woman burst out of the Metropark Lido’s grand ballroom in front of the assembled television cameras and screamed, “All my family are gone.”
She was followed by paramedics carrying a stricken man out on a stretcher.
Another grief-stricken man had to be restrained after kicking a member of the media and threatening to “beat him to death” for filming the unfolding emotional scene.
Infuriated by the Malaysian government’s confused response and mixed messaging after the mysterious March 8 disappearance of the packed jetliner, the Chinese have been especially vocal in their demand for answers — and a tinderbox of emotions just waiting to explode.
The grim message came amid reports that possible plane wreckage was found in the southern Indian Ocean — the exact opposite direction the Beijing-bound plane was heading when it vanished.
With News Wire Services
