SEOUL, March 20 (Xinhua) -- At the Hanjin logistics warehouse in Jung-gu District of Incheon of South Korea, hundreds of paper boxes filled with face masks and protective suits were loaded onto several trucks on Friday morning.

"Always support each other through thick and thin," on the boxes were written the eight characters in both Chinese and Korean languages. The 1.1 million face masks and 10,000 protective gears were donated by the Chinese central government to help South Korea against the COVID-19 outbreak.

These trucks then set off directly to cities and provinces that were badly plagued by the epidemic, including Daegu City and North Gyeongsang Province.

The Chinese government has delivered the medical relief goods by air to the Incheon International Airport, west of the capital Seoul, in three batches from March 16.

The medical supplies, including 1 million disposable surgical masks, 100,000 medical protective masks, and 10,000 protective suits, began to be sent from 10:00 a.m. local time to the Red Cross branches and hospitals nationwide.

Then, the goods will be distributed to hospitals, patient care centers and cohort isolation facilities across the country, according to South Korea's Red Cross.

China's donation of medical devices was aimed to help South Korea contain the coronavirus outbreak, based on amicable relations between the two countries, said the Red Cross.

"On behalf of our people suffering difficulty from the COVID-19 outbreak, I would like to express my deep gratitude to the Chinese government for the donation of medical supplies," Red Cross President Park Kyung-seo said.

"China-donated masks and protective gears will be provided for medical staff, patients and the socially underprivileged who are in an urgent need of them," he said.

He also anticipated that China's donation would help resolve the shortage of face masks here.

South Korea reportedly can produce as many as 12 million facial masks per day, falling far short of meeting a daily demand from the country's 51 million population.

The country has adopted an odd-even rule on the weekly sale of masks, under which people born in odd-numbered years can buy two masks per week on odd days, and vice-versa. On the weekend, people who fail to buy masks on weekdays can purchase them.

Other Chinese municipal governments also made donations of face masks to South Korea, according to the Red Cross.

Shanghai donated 500,000 facial masks to South Korea through the Red Cross, which in turn delivered them to two cities and two provinces, including Daegu and North Gyeongsang province, on March 2.

Qingdao sent 20,000 masks to the Red Cross, which distributed them to the Daegu city on March 6, while Ma Yun, former chairman of Alibaba, donated 1 million masks that were distributed across the entire South Korea on March 12.

Daegu, some 300 km southeast of Seoul, and its surrounding North Gyeongsang province, have been the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak here as the regional infections accounted for almost 90 percent of the total.

The series of donations from China were a reciprocal action to assistance from South Korea earlier this year. South Korea's daily caseload began to grow sharply on Feb. 19.

South Korea's foreign ministry said in late January that it decided to offer 5 million U.S. dollars of medical supplies to China, including 2 million facial masks, 1 million medical masks, 100,000 protective suits and 100,000 protective goggles.

The ministry noted that the South Korean government would strengthen bilateral relations with China by tackling the COVID-19 outbreak together, based on friendly relations between the two countries.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in said in early February that the importance for cooperation between the two countries that are close neighbors from various perspectives. Enditem

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