KUALA LUMPUR, March 27 — After facing a harshly cynical crowd of Chinese families in Beijing yesterday, Malaysia said today it will do better when its representatives meet with them again during routine briefings on the MH370 crisis.
In a statement here, the Transport Ministry said the country is “working hard” at making sure its counterparts in China are kept in the loop and treated with utmost respect when handling the delicate situation.
“Malaysia is working hard to try and make the briefings to the Chinese relatives in Beijing more productive
“Malaysian officials met with His Excellency Huang Huikang, China’s Ambassador to Malaysia, to request the Government of China to engage and clarify the actual situation to the affected families in particular and the Chinese public in general,” the ministry said.
“Malaysia is committed to working closely with the Government of China and to sharing all information related to MH370 in full.”
The ministry also said that the same high-level team that met with the relatives of Chinese passengers in Beijing yesterday held another briefing earlier this afternoon.
Yesterday, it was reported that the irate families had demanded answers from the Malaysian delegation, some even mocking them for reportedly failing to answer all their queries.
According to an AFP report, on relative said Malaysia Airlines (MAS) group chief executive officer Ahmad Jauhari Yahya was “talking out of his arse”, in an angry response to the delegation at the briefing session.
“All the things that were promised, we have received nothing. Was Mr Yahya talking out of the other end of his body — was he talking out of his arse?” the relative was quoted saying.
According to the report, the rest of those in the room applauded the individual’s remark.
Malaysia has had to deal with harsh criticism from international communities over the handling of the MH370 crisis, especially from the Chinese, who had formed the bulk of the aircraft’s passenger list.
The jetliner that went missing on March 8 had been carrying 239 people — 153 of them Chinese.
After a countless number of theories and leads, some false, some still yet to be verified, the Boeing 777 aircraft remains missing.
The search operation for the aircraft is now in the southern part of the Indian Ocean, where the authorities have confirmed the jet had crashed, after nearly eight hours of flight.
According to the ministry, today’s planned search area was 16,298 square nautical miles in the West sector, and 6,506 square nautical miles in the East sector.
These areas were identified by the Malaysian Remote Sensing Agency (MRSA) yesterday — where the 122 potential objects were sighted – was also due to be searched today, the ministry’s statement said.
But bad weather hampered search efforts earlier today, forcing the team to recall their aircraft from the search zones at 11.40am.
