Australian PM says black box locator to be deployed on searching ship

A device for locating the black box will be put onto an Australian navy ship searching for the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott told media on Saturday.  [Special coverage]

"It will be taken to the most prospective search area and if there is good reason to deploy it, it will be deployed," he told reporters this morning in Sydney, according to local media AAP.

He said the black box recovery equipment will be put on a navy ship in Perth.

So far, no debris had been recovered in the adjusted search area, he said.

The search area was shifted about 1,100 km northeast Friday on what was said to be a credible new lead.

The new search area, about 319,000 square km, is about four times bigger than the previous search area in the southern Indian Ocean and 1,100 km to the northeast.

The prime minister also warned the difficulty of the task.

"We should not underestimate the difficulty of this work," he said. "These are inhospitable seas. We are trying to find small bits of wreckage in a vast ocean."

Authorities said bad weather expected in the search zone on Saturday afternoon may hamper the search again.

A cluster of 11 white rectangular objects is sitting below water surface some 1,600 km west of Perth, Australia, New Zealand Air Force official told media on Saturday.

The objects, one-meter rectangular piece of material, were within five meters away from one another, said New Zealand Air Vice Marshal Kevin Short.