KUALA LUMPUR, March 6 — The most promising clues to the whereabouts of Flight MH370 have been exhausted nearly a year after the plane went missing, leaving searchers in a dilemma on how to proceed with the hunt.

At the centre of their quandary is the difficult decision to either continue unabated the hitherto fruitless hunt, which has already cost A$120 million (RM341.9 million), or consider “other options”.

According to the Wall Street Journal, a spokesman for the Australian Transportation Safety Board that is coordinating the search said the best leads have already been used up now.

And the lack of evidence about the plane’s location is ironically both impetus and obstacle to either cutting back or even possibly discontinuing the search; without any confirmation of MH370’s fate, families of those on board will not accept anything other than a continued search.

“I would like the [Malaysian] government to continue searching for at least one more year,” Jalwati Jalil was quoted as saying by the WSJ. Her husband, Safuan Ramlam, was aboard the missing plane.

“After that, if it is still not found, then maybe I will accept that the plane is lost. But not now. Keep on searching.”

Jalwati’s sentiments are common within circles of families and next-of-kin with loved ones on MH370, many of whom also continue to resist the declaration that the plane has been lost and those on board, dead.

But indications are growing that searchers are now weighing the possibility of either reducing efforts or pausing these.

Earlier this week, Australian Deputy Prime Minister was quoted by news agency Reuters as saying that discussions on whether to call the search off “are already under way”.

This was swiftly denied but Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot later conceded during his homage to MH370 in his country’s parliament that he “can’t promise that the search will go on at this intensity forever.”

An unnamed source told WSJ that the Malaysian government would attempt to continue the search even if Australia eases off, no matter the cost. The paper noted, however, that Malaysia lacked the expertise to do so.

The Boeing 777 vanished a year ago Sunday carrying 239 people en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing and is believed to have gone down in one of the deepest and most remote areas of the Indian Ocean far off the Western Australia coast.