As the wait for news of the plane continued into the night, Chinese relatives of passengers accused the airline of keeping them in the dark.
"There's no one from the company here. They've shut us in this room and told us to wait," one man told Reuters at a hotel near Beijing airport where the relatives were taken. "They haven't even given us the passenger list."
Another relative, trying to evade a throng of reporters, muttered: "They're treating us worse than dogs."
Distressed relatives of people on board Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 wait in Beijing. Photograph: Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters