PHNOM PENH, March 17 — Some 100 Cambodians, including Buddhist monks, prayed here tonight for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 with 239 people on board, which disappeared on March 8, Xinhua news agency reported.

“We pray for the passengers of the missing plane and wish that the plane would be found soon,” said a rights activist Tep Vanny, who organised the prayer.

“We’d like to share our sympathies with the family members of the passengers on board the missing flight MH370.”

Yesterday evening, about 1,000 Cambodian Muslims also prayed in a mosque on the outskirts of the capital for the missing jetliner.

The Beijing-bound jetliner vanished about one hour after taking off from KL International Airport at 12.41am last Saturday. It was scheduled to land in Beijing at 6.30am the same day.    

Among the passengers on board were 154 Chinese nationals.

Malaysia on Saturday decided to shift the search to one of two possible corridors — northern (corridor) from the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to northern Thailand, and southern (corridor) stretching from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.

Malaysia’s Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein said in Kuala Lumpur today that the number of countries involved in the search and rescue operation has increased to 26 from 14. — Bernama