epresentatives of foreign missions whose citizens were on Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH370 reported missing last Saturday, were given a  briefing on the search and rescue (SAR) operations yesterday.     

The closed-door briefing held for about an hour at Hotel Sama Sama in Sepang was delivered by Deputy Foreign Minister Hamzah Zainuddin, who was accompanied by Deputy Transport Minister Abdul Aziz Kaprawi.     

Among the foreign government representatives present included those from China, India, Australia and Brunei.     

The briefing was held to explain the details of the press conference held by Prime Minister Najib Razak, this afternoon, relating to the latest developments on the SAR operations for MH370.     

MAS Flight MH370, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, went missing en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing about an hour after taking off from the KL International Airport at 12.41 am Saturday. It should have landed in Beijing at 6.30 am.     

In the press conference, Najib said based on data available, there was high degree of certainty that the plane, a Boeing 777 ER, had deviated from its original path.     

He stressed that the authorities were still investigating all possibilities as to what caused Flight MH370 to deviate from its original flight path.     

He added that following the developments, SAR operations in the South China Sea were being discontinued and the focus of the search now was on two air corridors the plane was believed to have taken.     

One was the northern corridor of the Indian Ocean - Andaman Sea, Bay of Bengal and overland right up to the southern tip of Kazakhstan and the other the southern part of the ocean, where there are very few land masses.     

- Bernama