Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has contracted a bacterial infection and is resting at home after touring districts hit by the country's worst flooding in decades, an aide said Monday.

Tengku Sharifuddin Tengku Ahmad, Najib's press secretary, told Agence France Presse the prime minister became  infected with E.coli after criss-crossing the flooded areas last month.

Indonesia Monday ordered the suspension of aviation officials as it investigates the crash of AirAsia Flight 8501, also promising action against any domestic airlines violating their flying permits.

The crackdown came as a major search in the Java Sea entered its ninth day, struggling in bad weather to find more bodies or the "black box" flight data recorders which are crucial to determining the cause of the disaster.

Weather was the "triggering factor" in the crash of AirAsia Flight 8501 with icing likely causing engine damage, Indonesia's meteorological agency said as divers prepared to search the plane wreckage Sunday.

The Airbus A320-200 crashed during a storm en route from Indonesia's second city Surabaya to Singapore, and relief workers are hunting for flight data recorders to determine the cause of the crash.

Recovery teams have found two big parts of AirAsia Flight 8501, which crashed into the sea last weekend with 162 people on board, Indonesia's top search official said Saturday.

News of the discovery came after Indonesia's transport ministry said the plane had been flying on an unauthorised schedule when it crashed, and the airliner has now been suspended from flying the route from the city of Surabaya to Singapore.

Indonesian recovery teams narrowed the search area for AirAsia Flight 8501 Friday, hopeful they were closing in on the plane's crash site, with a total of 30 bodies and more debris recovered from the sea.

French and Singaporean investigators joined the hunt for the Airbus A320-200, which disappeared from radar during a storm Sunday en route from Indonesia's second city of Surabaya to Singapore with 162 people on board. 

At least 21 people have been killed and eight others are missing after the worst flooding in decades across Malaysia's northeast, police said Wednesday, with almost a quarter of a million people displaced.

They said 14 of the deaths were recorded in the worst-hit state of Kelantan, where some 158,476 people were displaced.

Soldiers acting as pall bearers Wednesday carried coffins containing the first two bodies from AirAsia Flight QZ8501 into Surabaya airport from where the ill-fated plane departed, as somber relatives gave their DNA to help identify loved ones.

The bodies were taken from an air force plane to a military ambulance to be transported to a hospital for examination and identification -- but many exhausted families were left waiting for news as bad weather hampered search efforts.

Relatives of passengers on AirAsia flight QZ8501 began crying hysterically and fainting Tuesday as Indonesian television footage showed a body floating in the sea during aerial searches for the plane.

At least two distraught family members were carried out on stretchers from the room where they had been waiting for news in Surabaya, Indonesia's second largest city -- the take-off point for the aircraft that disappeared during a storm on Sunday.

Indonesia has requested help from the United States to search for a missing AirAsia jetliner, U.S. officials said Monday, amid fears the aircraft crashed into the sea.

The State Department also confirmed that no Americans were on Flight QZ8501, which disappeared on Sunday over the Java Sea with 162 people on board.

The sister of Remi Plesel, the French co-pilot of the AirAsia jet that has disappeared with 162 people on board, paid tribute Monday to an "excellent" pilot who had dreamed of flying as a boy.