Friday 29 Mar 2024
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PERTH (Mar 23): As the sun set on an Indian Ocean beach north of Perth yesterday, Malaysians and their Australian friends carried candles and flowers in a show of solidarity with the families of the missing passengers and crew of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which vanished more than a year ago.

The Association of Malaysians in Western Australia (Amwa) organised the vigil with the support of the local Whitfords Volunteer Sea Rescue to assure the families that they were not alone.

Although fewer than 50 people turned up at Ocean Reef boat harbour, about 25km north of Perth, because of confusion over the venue and time, the sombre and moving ceremony evoked emotions.

A universal prayer and a reading from the Al-Quran was followed by the singing of “Amazing Grace”. Then came the flowers and candles.

People watched from the jetty as two sea rescue boats headed a kilometre out to sea to drop the flowers and a floating light marker beacon to “light the way for loved ones on MH370”.

Amwa president Raymond Cheong said the first anniversary of the disappearance of the plane had passed with very little attention given to how the families of the missing passengers were coping.

“One year on and they are no closer to knowing what happened to their loved ones then they were when the tragedy occurred,” he said.

“Closure still escapes them. They are unable to move on with their lives. Our message is they are not alone, that we are standing in solidarity with them and we still remember their loved ones.”

Perth’s public face of the anguished families, Danica Weeks, whose husband Paul was on MH370, was not at the vigil because she did not feel strong enough to attend but she sent a message of thanks to the organisers for thinking of the families.

A West Australian Government minister was to attend but did not arrive before the boats left shore. Malaysia Airlines Perth manager Ivy Tan was spotted in the crowd.

Glaringly, there was no representation from the Malaysian Consulate-General in Perth. Consul-General Hafizah Abdullah is patron of Amwa, but did not attend. Nor was she available for comment.

However, speculation was rife that authorities in Kuala Lumpur were against supporting vigils and rallies because they did not want to draw attention to the growing anger of families, particularly from China.

When at least 15 volunteers from Whitfords sea rescue could give their precious weekend spare time to a ceremony that was devoid of politics, it was a shame that the Malaysian authorities could not do the same.

MH370 disappeared from the radar on March 8 last year en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The Boeing 777 last made contact with air traffic control less than an hour after take-off, at a point over the South China Sea.

Investigators believe the plane, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, was flown thousands of kilometres off course before eventually crashing into the ocean off Australia.

The flight was declared officially missing on January 29, and all passengers and crew members are presumed dead. No trace of the plane has been found despite the largest search operation in aviation history that has so far cost millions of dollars.

The official search for MH370 has focused on the southern Indian Ocean along a rugged 60,000 sq km patch of sea floor some 1,600km from Perth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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