Chinese rescue team arrives in Manila
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E-mail China.org.cn, November 21, 2013
The first emergency medical and rescue team from China arrived in Manila on Wednesday night for a relief mission in central Philippines which was devastated by super typhoon Haiyan on Nov. 8.
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The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy's hospital ship the Peace Ark will depart on a typhoon relief mission to the Philippines on Thursday. |
Rescue and medical leader Sun Shuopeng told Xinhua at the airport that her 18 member team sent by the Red Cross Society are expected to leave Manila soon for Tacloban, one of the hardest-hit areas, and stay there for 15 days.
"We hope this mission can alleviate the lack of medical care in disaster-hit areas in the Philippines and show the Chinese people's goodwill to the Philippine people," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a daily briefing on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the Peace Ark Hospital Ship from the naval force of the Chinese People's Liberation Army has left on Thursday for medical aid in the Philippines. The hospital ship is equipped with advanced medical systems including rooms for CT scanning, digital X-ray, and oxygen generation, a blood bank, compressed air system and so on.
Hong said the government will send another 51-member emergency medical team and the Red Cross Society of China will dispatch 13 more people for disaster relief.
The China Soong Ching Ling Foundation will also donate 200 prefabricated houses worth 3.2 million yuan ($525,000), he added.
Earlier this week, China shipped 73 million pesos (10 million yuan) worth of relief goods, which included 10,000 blankets and 2, 600 tents, each capable of housing 6-10 people, to Cebu, a disaster relief distribution center, and turned them over the Philippine side.
A charted airplane will bring 2,000 tents, medicines and medical devices to the disaster area on Saturday.
China increased its assistance to disaster-hit areas as it learned casualties and damages triggered by Typhoon Haiyan kept growing.
Xu Liping, a Southeast Asian studies researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the fact that the medical ship is being sent to help the Philippines has nothing to do with politics.
Xu said, "The interests of the typhoon-stricken people are above everything," adding that for now the two nations should put aside their disputes.
The death toll from Typhoon Haiyan (local name Yolanda) stands at 4,011, the Philippine disaster agency said Wednesday. The number of those injured has risen to 18,557, while 1,602 people remained missing.
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