The People's Liberation Army (PLA) announced today that it has sent two Chinese battleships, the frigate "Mianyang" and the amphibious landing ship "Jinggangshan", to join the search and rescue operations for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane.

Jinggangshan, which carries 14 medical personnel and 10 rescue divers, sailed out from Zhanjiang port in Guangdong province at 3 am on Sunday. It is set to arrive in the suspected area by 10 am Tuesday.

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Mianyan, meanwhile, was pulled out from a mission in the Nansha waters and was sent to the suspected area at 11:50 pm on Saturday.

PLA Navy Commander in Chief Wu Shengli said he has commanded the South China Sea Fleet to prepare for a rescue mission after he was informed about the missing jet.

The Malaysia Airlines plane left Kuala Lumpur in the early hours of Saturday morning. It was carrying 239 people, including 154 Chinese nationals, and was supposed to arrive at its destination at 6:30 am, but vanished from radar screens somewhere between the east coast of Malaysia and southern Vietnam.

The scope of the search for the Boeing 777 plane was widened to 10,000 square kilometers on Sunday after reports that the Beijing-bound jet had turned back to Kuala Lumpur before disappearing from radar screens.

Meanwhile, governor of Yunnan province, has said there is no evidence linking the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 to the terrorist attack in Kunming on March 1.

The timing of the incident, a week after knife-wielding terrorists killed at least 29 people at a train station in the southwestern city of Kunming, led to speculation that Xinjiang separatist forces could be involved.