KUALA LUMPUR, March 21 — Searchers looking off the coast of Australia for signs of debris possibly related to Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 today reported “encouraging” conditions after poor visibility hampered yesterday’s efforts, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said today.

AMSA stressed, however, that the five planes in the search area — three P3 Orions, one long range corporate jet and a P8 Poseidon — have not located any signs of the “indistinct” items that Australia announced to the world yesterday.

“The first aircraft that arrived on scene did report on the weather and found it suitable for searching, so that’s encouraging,” John Young, AMSA’s Emergency Response division general manager, told a video update in Canberra today.

The Australian official said the improved visibility was necessary as search efforts will be conducted visually, after radar searches of the area involved yesterday failed to detect anything.

Young continued to urge caution in interpreting the images before the debris can be located and retrieved, but reiterated that the pictures remain the most promising clue in the nearly two weeks of search for the missing jetliner and the 239 people on board.

“I don’t know what that might be, but the plan is we want to find these objects because they are the best lead to where we might find people to be rescued,” Young said.

He added that AMSA will attempt to acquire further satellite imagery to allow search assets to be more effectively deployed in the area some 2,500km southwest of Perth in Western Australia.

Australia came forward yesterday with information of the images of debris in the southern Indian Ocean that it said could be related the missing plane.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who made the announcement in his country’s Parliament, today stood by his decision amid criticism that the images were inconclusive.

He said Australia owed the families of the 239 people on board the missing flight a duty to do all it could to resolve what he described as an extraordinary puzzle.

“We owe it to them to do everything we can to resolve this and because of the understandable state of anxiety and apprehension that they’re in we also owe it to them to give them information as soon as it’s to hand and I think I was doing that yesterday in the parliament,” Abbott said during a press conference in Papua New Guinea today.

Malaysian authorities yesterday concurred that the sightings were a “credible lead” in efforts to find MH370, but advised caution following previous such images provided by China that later turned out to be false.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was headed for Beijing with 239 people when it lost contact with ground control at 1.22am on March 8.

It was initially thought to be lost somewhere over the South China Sea, where Malaysian air traffic controllers last registered the plane on their radar screens.

But Malaysia revealed a week later that the plane had flown west over the peninsula after it severed communications.

Authorities also concluded the flight deviation was most likely due to “deliberate action”.

Malaysia also revealed that satellite communication showed the plane was in one of two “corridors”: a northern arc from northern Thailand to the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan in central Asia, or a southern one from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.

The Australian search is located in the southern “corridor”.