Kuala Lumpur: The latest search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has been suspended, Kuala Lumpur’s transport minister said, more than a decade after the plane went missing.
“They have stopped the operation for the time being, they will resume the search at the end of this year,” Transport Minister Anthony Loke said in a voice recording sent to AFP on Thursday by his aide.
The Boeing 777 carrying 239 people disappeared from radar screens on March 8, 2014 while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Despite the largest search in aviation history, the plane has not been found.
Loke’s comments come just one month after authorities said the search had resumed, following earlier failed attempts that covered vast swathes of the Indian Ocean.
An initial Australia-led search covered 120,000 square kilometers (46,300 square miles) in the Indian Ocean over three years, but found hardly any trace of the plane other than a few pieces of debris.
Maritime exploration firm Ocean Infinity, based in Britain and the United States, led an unsuccessful hunt in 2018, before agreeing to launch a new search this year.
“Right now, it’s not the season,” Loke said in the recording, which was made during an event at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Wednesday.
“Whether or not it will be found will be subject to the search, nobody can anticipate,” Loke said, referring to the wreckage of the plane.
Search for long-missing flight MH370 suspended: Malaysia minister
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Search for long-missing flight MH370 suspended: Malaysia minister
- The Boeing 777 carrying 239 people disappeared from radar screens on March 8, 2014 while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Indonesian rescuers race to find dozens still trapped in deadly West Java landslide
- At least 47 people were killed in the landslide that tore through a mountainside village
- Rescuers continue searching for some 80 people who remain missing as of Tuesday
JAKARTA: A massive search operation continued in Indonesia’s West Java on Tuesday with rescue workers racing to find dozens of missing people, including members of an elite marine force feared buried in a landslide that has already killed at least 47.
Days of heavy rain that inundated the province’s West Bandung regency triggered a predawn landslide on Saturday, which buried a marine training camp and some 30 houses in Pasirlangu village on the slopes of Mount Burangrang.
Rescuers have had to dig through tons of mud, debris and uprooted trees, as bad weather and unstable soil intermittently hampered search operations since the weekend.
As search operations entered their fourth day on Tuesday, Indonesian authorities mobilized heavier equipment to sift through thick mud and used drones to identify and expand search locations, said Ade Dian Permana, who heads the Search and Rescue Agency in Bandung.
“As of 5:20 p.m., the total number of bodies we have recovered since the first day until the fourth day now stands at 47,” Permana said during a press briefing on Tuesday.
“We are looking for about 80 people … The number of people impacted and missing may change, which means there could be more than what we are currently looking for.”
The number of people missing was double that reported on Monday evening, when it stood at 42.
Among those missing were members of a 23-member marine unit training for a long-duration assignment on the Indonesia-Papua New Guinea border, at least four of whom have been confirmed among the dead, Navy Chief of Staff Adm. Muhammad Ali has confirmed, while the rest remain unaccounted for.
“Heavy rain over two nights triggered the slope failure that buried their training area,” Ali told reporters on Monday.
Floods and landslides are common in Indonesia during seasonal rains from October to March.
The landslide in West Java is the latest in a string of severe weather-related disasters in the archipelagic country, where floods and landslides on Sumatra island late last year killed more than 1,200 people and displaced over half a million.
In the capital Jakarta, officials have issued work-from-home and flexible work recommendations due to extreme weather, with heavy rains triggering widespread flooding in the city since the beginning of the year.
