More than 30 relatives of passengers on the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 have had to move hotels to make way for Formula One teams and fans arriving for the Malaysian Grand Prix, staff said on Monday.
The announcement of the crash of the aircraft into the ocean came after the families were shifted out, sources were quoted as saying by news agencies.
Thirty-two family members, including Chinese nationals, have been decamped from two hotels near Kuala Lumpur’s international airport, which is also close to the Sepang racetrack, hotel and airline officials said.
“The rooms have been pre-booked before this event happened,” one hotel official said on condition of anonymity.
A Malaysian Airlines spokeswoman also confirmed that the relatives had been moved out. The relatives have been staging a fraught vigil after the Malaysian Airlines flight with 239 people on board mysteriously vanished shortly after take-off on March 8, prompting a frantic international search effort in civil aviation history to locate the missing jet.
Ministers and government officials working on the case have also been forced to leave the two conveniently located hotels, and daily media briefings have been shifted elsewhere. The Malaysian Grand Prix is a high point of the country’s sporting calendar and attracts thousands of workers and visitors.
