Ships searching for missing flight MH370 have retrieved objects from the Indian Ocean for the first time since the aircraft disappeared more than three weeks ago, it has emerged.
Sources said two ships - on Australian and one Chinese - were able to pick up 'a number of objects' during today's search, CBS News reported.
However Australian officials who are coordinating efforts in the South Indian Ocean, around 1,150 miles off the coast of Perth, maintain no items linked to the missing passengers jet have been retrieved from the water.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority said in a statement: 'So far no objects confirmed to be related to MH370 have been recovered.'
It comes as Malaysian Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said he refuses to give up hope of finding some of the 239 passengers and crew alive.
He said his country is committed to seeing the investigation through to its final conclusion.
'I cannot give them (relatives) false hope,' he said. 'The best we can do is pray and be sensitive to them, that as long as there is even a remote chance of a survivor, we will pray and do whatever it takes.'
'What they (relatives) want from us is a commitment to continue the search, and that I have given, not only on behalf of the Malaysian government but the so many nations involved.
'For me as the minister responsible, this is the hardest part of my life, at the moment.
'Miracles do happen, remote or otherwise, and that is the hope that the families want me to convey not only to the Malaysian government, MAS, but also to the world at large.'
Earlier today a Chinese military plane hunting for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 spotted suspicious red, white and orange objects floating in the South Indian Ocean.
Australian officials coordinating the operation moved the search area 680 miles north east yesterday - it was shifted after new radar data analysis suggested the jet flew faster than originally thought and would have used up more fuel, which might have reduced the distance it travelled.
The Chinese navy vessel Jinggangshan, which carries two helicopters, reached the new search area early today where it was expected to focus on searching for plane surfaces, oil slicks and life jackets.
A Chinese Ilyushin IL-76 flying over the new site detected the floating items - which bear the colours of the missing plane - today around 1,150 miles west of Perth, the official Xinhua news agency said.
That sighting follows reports of 'multiple objects of various colours' by international flight crews yesterday, according to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA).
Some looked like they were from fishing boats and nothing could be confirmed until they were recovered by ships, it added.
'We're hopeful to relocate some of the objects we were seeing yesterday,' Royal New Zealand Air Force Squadron Leader Flight Lieutenant Leon Fox said before flying out to the search zone on an Orion P-3.
'Hopefully some of the ships in the area will be able to start picking it up and give us an indication of what we were seeing.'
An Australian pilot returning from the search is said to have told reporters that objects spotted yesterday by Chinese crews have been marked with buoys to enable ships to locate them easily.
He told reporters near Kuala Lumpur, after meeting several families of passengers on the plane, that there was no new information on the objects, which could just be regular debris, or could be from the missing plane.
'I've got to wait to get the reports on whether they have retrieved those objects... Those will give us some indication,' said Hishammuddin, who was accompanied by his wife and children as he visited the relatives at a hotel in Putrajaya, Malaysia.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority said that objects cannot be verified or discounted as being from Flight 370 until they are relocated and recovered by ships.
'It is not known how much flotsam, such as from fishing activities, is ordinarily there. At least one distinctive fishing object has been identified,' it said.
The three objects spotted by the Chinese plane Saturday were white, red and orange in color, the Xinhua news report said.
Flight 370 disappeared March 8 while bound from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, and investigators have been puzzling over what might have happened aboard the plane, with speculation ranging from equipment failure and a botched hijacking to terrorism or an act by one of the pilots.
The latter was fueled by reports the pilot's home flight simulator had files deleted from it, but Hishimmuddin said checks, including ones by the FBI, turned up no new information.
'What I know is that there is nothing sinister from the simulators but of course that will have to be confirmed by the chief of police,' he said.
Australia's Bureau of Meteorology said a cold front would bring rain, low clouds and reduced visibility over the southern part of the search area, with moderate winds and swells of up to 2 metres (6 feet).
Conditions are expected to improve tomorrow, although rain, drizzle and low clouds are still likely.
Newly analyzed satellite data shifted the search zone on Friday, raising hopes searchers may be closer to getting physical evidence that that the plane crashed in the Indian Ocean with 239 people aboard.
That would also help narrow the hunt for the wreckage and the plane's black boxes, which could contain clues to what caused the plane - flying to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur - to be so far off-course.
The U.S. Navy has already sent equipment that can detect pings from the back boxes, and Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott told reporters in Sydney that the equipment would be put on an Australian naval ship soon.
'It will be taken to the most prospective search area and if there is good reason to deploy it, it will be deployed,' he said, without giving a timeframe.
Other officials have said it could take days for the ship - the Ocean Shield - to reach the search area.
The newly targeted zone is nearly 700 miles north east of sites the searchers have crisscrossed for the past week.
The redeployment came after analysts determined that the Boeing 777 may have been traveling faster than earlier estimates and would therefore have run out of fuel sooner, officials said.
Search planes were sent out today from Perth, Australia, in a staggered manner, so at least one plane will be over the area for most of the daylight hours.
It is also closer than the previous search area, with a flying time of two hours each way, allowing for five hours of search time, according to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.
The Australian statement said five P-3 Orions - three from Australia and one each from Japan and New Zealand - plus a Japanese coast guard jet, the Chinese Ilyushin IL-76, and one civilian jet acting as a communications relay, took part Saturday.
Mr Abbott said the job of locating the debris was still difficult. 'We should not underestimate the difficulty of this work - it is an extraordinarily remote location.'
The area spans about 123,000 square miles, roughly the size of Poland.
In most places, depths range from about 6,560 feet to 13,120 feet, although the much deeper Diamantina trench edges the search area.
The hunt for the plane focused first on the Gulf of Thailand, along the plane's planned path.
But when radar data showed it had veered sharply west, the search moved to the Andaman Sea, off the western coast of Malaysia, before pivoting to the southern Indian Ocean, southwest of Australia.
That change was based on analysis of satellite data. But officials said a reexamination and refinement of that analysis indicated the aircraft was traveling faster than previously estimated, resulting in increased fuel use and reducing the possible distance it could have flown before going down.
As the Malaysian government comes under strong criticism from China, home to more than 150 of the passengers, relatives of the missing have accused the government of 'delays and deception'.
More than 20 Chinese relatives staged a brief protest on Saturday outside the Lido hotel in Beijing where families have been staying for the past three weeks, demanding evidence of the plane's fate.
The peaceful protest came just days after dozens of angry relatives clashed with police after trying to storm the Malaysian embassy.
Many of Saturday's protesters carried slogans demanding the 'truth' about their lost loved ones.
'They don't have any direct evidence,' said Steve Wang, who had a relative on the flight.
'(Their conclusion) is only based on mathematical (analysis) and they used an uncertain mathematical model. Then they come to the conclusion that our relatives are all gone.'
'They're all still alive, my son and everyone onboard! The plane is still there too! They're hiding it,' demonstrator Wen Wancheng, 63, yelled.
His only son, Wen Yongsheng, is a passenger. He held up a banner that read: 'Son, mom and dad's hearts are torn to pieces. Come home soon!'
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