Flight MH370 Update: China's Li Keqiang Offers Australia $14.5M To Expand Search

China’s Premier Li Keqiang on Saturday offered to contribute $14.5 million to Australia in a bid to expand the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, according to a tweet by Xinhua News Agency. He made the offer to Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull at the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The search for the plane, which disappeared in March last year, has been led by Australia and Malaysia, with almost two dozen other countries contributing planes, submarines and satellites.

The flight disappeared while on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers and crew on board. Leaders from China, whose citizens made up about two-thirds of those aboard the plane, have repeatedly said they will spare no effort in the search.

The hunt, which started along the coast of Perth, Australia, has been expanded twice to canvass about 95 percent of the flight path taken by the airliner. Currently, the search is underway in a 46,332 square mile area in the southern Indian Ocean, where authorities believe the plane went down.

The search for the missing airliner, the largest ever in aviation history, has scanned some 70,000 square kilometers (about 27,027 square miles) of the Indian Ocean floor so far.

While there have been numerous reports of debris, only part of a wing that washed ashore on Reunion Island, a French territory in the western Indian Ocean, has been confirmed to have been part of the plane.