Australia boosts Indian Ocean travel safety after MH370

Australian authorities say they have helped make the Indian Ocean safer for air and sea travellers since Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished in the vast expanse four years ago through search and rescue training with island nations. Search and rescue officials from Mauritius, the Maldives and Sri Lanka are visiting the Australian Maritime Safety Authority headquarters in Canberra this week as part of a regional training program that began in 2015. Rick Allen, an Australian search and rescue coordinator who is taking part in the training, said five Sri Lankan fishermen were rescued faster and more efficiently after their boat sank in 2016 thanks to the three countries having an Australian online broadcast system to alert merchant shipping to emergencies. "We're all about strengthening the response options that are available in search and rescue. We're particularly dealing in that remote northwestern part of the Indian Ocean," Allen said. "Already we're seeing benefits. So the program not only involved work-shopping, meeting together, it also involved delivering systems and delivering tool that enable our partners to work more effectively in search and rescue," he added. Australia has developed particular expertise in search and rescue operations that test the limits of the distances that search planes can stay airborne. The nation of just 24m people has search and rescue responsibility for around 10% of the Earth's surface.<br/>