MELBOURNE, March 30 -- Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Sunday lauded China's assistance to Canberra in the search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.

"As we speak, there's intense cooperation happening between the Royal Australian Navy and ships of the Chinese navy, between the Royal Australian Airforce and the aircraft of the People's Liberation Army airforce, in the search for knowledge and insight into what happened to MH370," he told a crowd at an Australia-China business event.

Abbott also hailed search efforts made by other sides. "It's good to see so many countries working together for our humanity," he said.

A total of ten planes and eight ships from various countries are involved in Sunday's search in an area in the southern Indian Ocean about 1,850 km west of Perth, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority said in a statement early in the day.

Australian warship Ocean Shield, which is loaded with advanced U.S. black box detector, will leave Perth on Monday to smell traces of the mysteriously vanished jet which disappeared from radar on March 8 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.