China's Defence Ministry yesterday announced it would deploy 10 satellites to hunt for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet carrying 239 people on board after three days of fruitless searching.
The control centre in Xian will relieve the satellites of other tasks to step up weather monitoring, communication and search operations in the area where the flight disappeared early on Saturday morning, the ministry said on its website.
The announcement came as Beijing said it would expand the search and called for Malaysia to strengthen its efforts to look for the plane.
This followed several false leads from the sighting of debris and oil slicks thought to have come from flight MH 370 that vanished en route to Beijing.
The area of the search would be widened from today, Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, the head of Malaysia's Civil Aviation Authority, told reporters.
Three Chinese civilian ships and the frigate Mianyang arrived yesterday and another three ships are on the way to the area where the plane lost contact.
Hong Kong's Civil Aviation Department said it had received a report from the crew of a Cathay Pacific Hong Kong-Kuala Lumpur flight at about 3pm that debris was spotted near Vung Tau, in the southeast Vietnam. The department said it had notified its counterparts in Vietnam, Malaysia and Hainan province.
This location was about 125 kilometres southeast of the supposed flight path of 370, which should have been flying over Ho Chi Minh City.
Thai police and Interpol questioned the proprietors of a travel agency in the resort town of Pattaya that sold one-way tickets to two men now known to have been travelling on flight MH370 using stolen passports.
Malaysia's police chief was quoted by local media as saying that one of the men had been identified.
Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said they were of "non-Asian" appearance. He added that authorities were looking at the possibility they were connected to a stolen passport syndicate.
The Thai travel agent who arranged the tickets for the two passengers using the stolen passports said she had booked them on the flight via Beijing because they were the cheapest tickets, the Financial Times reported.
The agent said an Iranian business contact she knew only as "Mr Ali" had asked her to book tickets for the men on March 1.
She had initially booked them on other airlines but those reservations expired and on March 6, Mr Ali had asked her to book them again. She told the newspaper she did not think Mr Ali, who paid her in cash and booked tickets with her regularly, was linked to terrorism
In Beijing, with no confirmation that the Boeing 777 had crashed, hundreds of distraught relatives waited anxiously for news. About 200 family of passengers criticised the lack of help from the Chinese and Malaysian governments.
Malaysia Airlines last night said it was providing 31,000 yuan for relatives of each passenger on board Flight 370, "not as compensation, but a special condolence payment for the families".
Meanwhile, in a press conference held on Phu Quoc Island last night, Vietnam's vice transport minister Pham Quy Tieu said debris spotted by the Singapore authorities earlier were not from the missing plane.
Rescue helicopters and ships searching for the jet yesterday rushed to investigate a yellow object that looked like a life-raft. It turned out to be moss-covered floating rubbish.
Meanwhile, Li Jiaxiang , China's minister of Civil Aviation Adminstration, would not comment whether they suspected an earlier terrorist attack warning about Beijing-bound flight was related to the missing plane.
Taiwan's spy chief confirmed yesterday morning that the island had received a warning of possible terrorist attacks in China as the mainland hold its annual parliamentary session.
National Security Bureau head Tsai De-sheng told a legislative committee that the NSB passed on a warning of planned attacks against Beijing airport and the city's subway system to Chinese authorities on March 4.
It comes as China's National People's Congress holds its annual session, which closes on Thursday.
