Nine Russian Air Force transport planes carrying more than 250 tons of relief material set off yesterday for China's earthquake-affected areas.

Eight Il-76 transport planes took off from Russia's Siberian region with 300 tents, more than 3,000 sets of clothing and other items onboard. The planes were also carrying Russian disaster relief experts, the Itar-Tass news agency reported.

Another An-124 plane, carrying 23 field kitchens, 30 large army tents and 3,000 blankets, took off from an airport near Moscow yesterday afternoon.

The goods were part of additional Russian aid to China. A total of 12 flights are scheduled to deliver more aid cargo to China, where the massive earthquake claimed more than 60,000 lives.

The transport planes will send mobile kitchens, tents, blankets, food and medicine to southwest China's Sichuan province, Itar-Tass cited Russian Air Force commander's aide Alexander Drobyshevsky as saying.

Russia has so far delivered more than 120 tons of emergency aid, a rescue team and a mobile hospital with staff to Sichuan.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who ordered an increase in aid to China, is in Beijing for his first foreign visit outside the former Soviet countries since he took office on May 7.

"I would like to tell you that, according to my instructions, a new group of planes carrying humanitarian aid, including tents, is to fly to China," Medvedev was quoted as saying during his meeting with Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping in Beijing.

Also, France's first medical team to China's quake zone is expected to arrive in Sichuan Province this weekend to help with relief work, according to the French Embassy in China.

The 13-person team of doctors, nurses, medical assistants and logistics experts left France yesterday and is expected to arrive in Chengdu, according to France's Foreign Affairs Ministry.

The team will work in a hospital in Guangyuan, a city near Qingchuan and Pingwu counties in north Sichuan, both of which were hit hard by the May 12 earthquake. France also pledged to donate another 200 tents to house survivors and their families.

(Xinhua News Agency May 25, 2008)