KUALA LUMPUR: The effort to find missing flight MH370 is at a “very critical juncture”, Malaysia’s transport minister said Saturday as authorities mull whether to reassess a challenging search of the Indian Ocean seabed that has so far found nothing.

“The search for today and tomorrow is at a very critical juncture. So I appeal for everybody around the world to pray and pray hard that we find something to work on,” Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said.

Malaysia was already in discussions with private companies on the possible use of more deep-sea vessels if the mini-submarine currently searching the ocean floor fails to make a breakthrough, Hishammuddin added.

The Boeing 777, which vanished on March 8 carrying 239 people, is believed to have crashed in deep remote waters far off Western Australia, though no trace of it has been found.

The Australian-led search effort is relying on a single US Navy submersible sonar scanning device to scour an uncharted seabed at depths of around 4,500 metres (15,000 feet) or more.—AFP