Beijing: Relatives shrieked and sobbed uncontrollably. Men and women nearly collapsed, 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 jetliner.
Relatives of passengers in Beijing had been called to a hotel near the airport to hear the news, and some 50 of them gathered there. Afterward, they filed out of a conference room in heart-wrenching grief.
One woman collapsed and fell on her knees, crying "My son! My son!"
Medical teams arrived at Beijing's Lido hotel with several stretchers and at least one elderly man was carried out of the conference room on one of them, his faced covered by a jacket. Minutes later a middle-aged woman was taken out on another stretcher, her face ashen and her blank expressionless eyes seemingly staring off into a distance.
Most of them refused to speak to gathered reporters and some of them lashed out in anger, urging journalists not to film the scene. Security guards restrained a man with close-cropped hair as he kicked a TV cameraman and shouted, "Don't film. I'll beat you to death!"
Before the prime minister's announcement, CBS News correspondent Seth Doane spoke to the wife of a crew member, who is still trying to "pretend" that her husband is around.
Jacqui Gonzales told Doane that she still texts her husband, including one message that said: "Come home, we're waiting."
Wang Zhen, whose father and mother, Wang Linshi and Xiong Yunming, were aboard the flight as part of a group of Chinese artists touring Malaysia, heard the announcement on television from another hotel where he has been staying.
24/03/14 CBS News
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Relatives of passengers in Beijing had been called to a hotel near the airport to hear the news, and some 50 of them gathered there. Afterward, they filed out of a conference room in heart-wrenching grief.
One woman collapsed and fell on her knees, crying "My son! My son!"
Medical teams arrived at Beijing's Lido hotel with several stretchers and at least one elderly man was carried out of the conference room on one of them, his faced covered by a jacket. Minutes later a middle-aged woman was taken out on another stretcher, her face ashen and her blank expressionless eyes seemingly staring off into a distance.
Most of them refused to speak to gathered reporters and some of them lashed out in anger, urging journalists not to film the scene. Security guards restrained a man with close-cropped hair as he kicked a TV cameraman and shouted, "Don't film. I'll beat you to death!"
Before the prime minister's announcement, CBS News correspondent Seth Doane spoke to the wife of a crew member, who is still trying to "pretend" that her husband is around.
Jacqui Gonzales told Doane that she still texts her husband, including one message that said: "Come home, we're waiting."
Wang Zhen, whose father and mother, Wang Linshi and Xiong Yunming, were aboard the flight as part of a group of Chinese artists touring Malaysia, heard the announcement on television from another hotel where he has been staying.
24/03/14 CBS News
