Why didn't Malaysians get same alert as visitors, opposition asks
As rescue workers and volunteers continue to pull more bodies from the debris, government officials have begun pointing fingers at each other in a growing row over why foreign tourists were warned about the looming tsunami threat but Malaysian beachgoers were not.
Every one of the 65 people who died on Sunday, and the injured and missing, are locals.
As helicopters and marine police continued to search a wide area of ocean for 60 picnickers who remain missing, opposition politicians have begun calling for an inquiry into the failure to issue a warning that might have saved dozens of lives.
They say that while Malaysian picnickers frolicked on the public stretches of the famed Batu Ferringhi beaches unaware of the unfolding danger, a kilometre away luxury hotels were sounding the alarm and evacuating their stretches of the same beach.
'This is scandalous ... foreigners were warned and escaped while Malaysians continued to picnic and die,' said parliamentary opposition leader Lim Kit Siang.