Influential Hong Kong daily South China Morning Post has been updating its reports every few hours since news of the missing boat broke this morning.
The misadventure was also closely watched by China’s official news agency, Xinhua, which just hours ago broke the news that the boat was found sunken in waters off Pulau Mengalum.
Other Chinese news agencies covering the news included among others, China Daily, China.org.cn, and Global Times, which are closely linked with the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
Chinese media have noted that this isn’t the first serious incident involving Chinese tourists in Malaysia.
Last year, 15 China nationals were injured after a tour bus heading downhill from the Genting Highlands resort crashed halfway through its journey.
And in October 2015, three Chinese tourists were killed in an accident involving a tanker and two buses near Yong Peng, Johor. Fifteen others on the bus were injured.
The biggest tragedy so far happened in 2014, when Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, with 239 people on board. The majority, 153 people, were from China.
But the number of Chinese travelling to Malaysia remained high, and in fact, even increased in the past couple of years.
The number of Chinese tourist arrivals between March and December last year touched 2.2 million, up from 1.2 million for a similar period in 2015.
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