MH370: Financial aid from MAS draw mixed feelings

Malaysia Airlines (MAS) has sought to ease the burden of the families of those on the missing flight MH370 by handing out a "special initial financial assistance".

However, families have reacted differently -- some indifferently -- to the aid of some RM16,000 that each family had been offered by the national carrier.

A mother to one of the Malaysian passengers said the cash helped a little with their day-to-day expenditure.

"We are at the hotel. Just waiting. We are just okay... we are still okay," she told Astro AWANI over the phone before passing the phone to another relative.

A brother-in-law to another passenger said that they have received the aid but said they were afraid MAS would not be happy if they revealed that.

"The aid is good but not our priority. What we are doing is just praying and hoping for their return. We don't want to hear anything negative, like theories of the worst scenarios in the papers," he said.

Yesterday, some relatives of Chinese passengers on flight MH370 had apparently refused to accept the cash aid, amounting to some 31,000 RMB.

AFP reported that a relative of one of the passengers, from east China’s Shandong province, that their family was "not really interested in the money".

“It is all about the people — the people on the plane. We just want them back,” she said at a Beijing hotel.

MAS had stressed that the financial aid was not compensation but assistance to affected families to purchase daily necessities immediately.

The national carrier's spokesman Ignatius Ong Ming Choy reportedly said the allocation was to ease the situation for the families of passengers on flight MH370 who had to be away from home at this difficult time.

MAS today confirmed that all passengers are being given the aid, including Malaysians.

It was understood that 100 family members from six nations are in Kuala Lumpur. MAS said that there are currently 72 caregivers attending to the families, with at least one caregiver to each family.