REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, BEIJING - Women shrieked and sobbed uncontrollably. Men and women held up their loved ones who were nearly collapsing. Their grief came pouring out after 17 days of waiting for some definitive word on the fate of their relatives aboard the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

Malaysia's prime minister gave that word in a televised news conference from Kuala Lumpur, saying there was no longer any reasonable doubt that the aircraft ended up in the southern Indian Ocean far from any possible landing site.

Relatives of passengers in Beijing had been called to a hotel near the airport to hear the announcement. 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!"

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