Hundreds of relatives of the passengers and crew of the missing Malaysian Airlines flight are expected to travel to Perth in coming days if wreckage is found, a journey that is particularly significant for Chinese families with traditional spiritual beliefs.
West Australian Premier Colin Barnett said on Wednesday he expected ''several hundred'' grieving family members to arrive.
''My understanding is that particularly relatives of the Chinese passengers who presumably have lost their lives will want to come to Perth to be as close as possible to the final place,'' he told 6PR radio. Gary Sigley, a professor of Asian Studies at the University of Western Australia, said there was a traditional Chinese folk belief that those who die tragically in the wilderness, or whose bodies are not recovered, cannot find their way to the ancestral spirit realm.
''There is a special festival to placate these spirits called the 'hungry ghost festival',''...
