(Reuters) — Residents of Malaysia’s capital woke up to the news that search for MH370 resumed in the southern Indian Ocean on Wednesday (March 26) as they mourned the death of the passengers who were on the flight bound for Beijing.
On Monday (March 24) Malaysia said new satellite data suggested the Boeing 777 had crashed, and now an international search effort is looking for physical evidence of the plane. Officials say all 239 people on board likely died.
Local newspapers paid tribute – “370 R.I.P.,” one front page read.
“Extremely, very sad news to them. They lost their family members, you know, who were in the flight. It’s really very bad,” Mohamad Ridwan, an Indian newspaper seller, said.
Digesting the news over breakfast at a restaurant in downtown Kuala Lumpur, one diner had a message for investigators.
“The thing they should do now is find the cause of this tragedy – to stop it ever happening again,” said Muszadi Anwar.
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 vanished from civilian radar screens less than an hour after taking off on March 8. No confirmed debris from the plane has been found since.
As a result of the new satellite analysis, the international search effort has been narrowed to focus solely on the southern end of its possible route – a still-massive area of 469,000 square miles (1.2 million sq km).
The search site is far from commercial flight paths about 2,500 km (1,550 miles) southwest of Perth, a region of deep, frigid seas known as the Roaring 40s where storm-force winds and huge waves are commonplace.
A dozen aircraft from Australia, the United States, China, Japan and South Korea scoured the remote seas after bad weather hampered the mission on Tuesday (March 25).
Recovery of wreckage could unlock clues about why the plane had diverted so far off course.
Malaysia Airlines said in a statement that it would make arrangements to fly relatives to Australiaonce it had approval from the investigating authorities.
