China Offers to Contribute $14.5Mln to Search for MH370 Flight

China’s Prime Minister Li Keqiang pledged on Saturday to contribute $14.5 million to the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, at a meeting with his Australian counterpart Malcolm Turnbull.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The airliner vanished in March 2014 while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Of the 227 passengers on board, 152 were Chinese nationals.

"China’s contribution is out of respect for humanity," Li said at the meeting on the margins of the ASEAN summit in Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur, as cited in a statement by China’s State Council.

The Chinese premier said he "hopes that Malaysia and Australia can continue to keep effective communication with China about plane search," according to the statement.

An international search-and-rescue operation, involving some 20 countries, has been trawling a 23,000-square-mile area in the Pacific Ocean in search of debris with the help of planes, ships, and satellites.