Two major transport-related disasters in a month have created a media frenzy. Every detail is endlessly mulled over, experts of all stripes are wheeled before cameras to offer 'sound' opinion and swirling currents of 'what ifs' thrash about in the sorry waters of 24/7 reporting.

Beyond what might have otherwise been a clearly constructed narrative of events and information (which this kind of reportage is not), it is hard to see who benefits from the news scramble that characterises disasters like these. By which I mean of course, the mysterious disappearance of Flight MH 370 and the dreadful recent capsizing of the the Korean ferry.

What is gained? I don't know. Time is lost in front of the TV or the computer screen. A kind of generalised nervousness sets in as perceived certainties are upended. These days, planes don't just disappear, do they? And large ferries on well-charted and popular routes don't routinely sink in thirty metres of water.

It is hard to watch. Even harder, the terrible despair of relatives and friends who don't know what has happened to their loved-ones, or at least, don't know for sure. For it is the uncertainty that is most crippling. We can live, however painfully, with the knowledge of things finally being worked out. I don't know what kind of life is possible when we just don't know.