The Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) will only release information on the search for Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 upon verification, unlike its Vietnamese counterpart.
 
DCA director-general Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said a lot of unverified information were coming out from Vietnam's media.
 
"What Vietnam does is they report to the media what they found and whenever we receive such news in the media or when somebody alerts us, we contact our counterparts in Vietnam. 
 
"All the time the Vietnam authorities deny that have found any objects (related to the incident). It was just disclosed in the media, that has always been the case," Azharuddin ( left ) told a press conference at Sama-Sama Hotel.
 
He pointed out that as a result, several false alarms have been made over objects detected near the site where flight MH370 disappeared from the radar.

'Search area to be expanded'

 
"We have to be very careful, if we go to the media and announce we found something, we have to verify positively that it is from the aircraft.
 
"We don't want to give false hope," Azharuddin said.

Asked whether after three days the operation is still search-and-rescue or is now considered disaster recovery, he insisted that it remainssearch-and-rescue.

Beginning tomorrow, the search radius will be doubled from 50 nautical miles to 100 nautical miles (185km) from the Igari waypoint in the Gulf of Thailand.

The search area in the Straits of Malacca will also be expanded as well as land search, Azharuddin said.

He said there have also been reports of debris spotted south of Hong Kong and ships were being despatched there.

"We will receive confirmation tomorrow," he added.