Thai rescue, medical teams leave for quake-hit Nepal

BANGKOK, April 28 (TNA) - The Thai military has sent its first batch of search and rescue team, as well as its medical emergency response unit to Nepal, after the land-locked South Asian nation was ravaged by a powerful 7.9-magnitude earthquake last Saturday with death toll having risen to over 4,000 so far and injuries having exceeded 6,000. Deputy Armed Forces Chief Admiral Taweewut Pongpipat presided over a ceremony to send a total of 67 Thai military officers and medical personnel to assist quake victims in Nepal at Bangkok’s Don Mueang Royal Thai Air Forces base on Tuesday morning. The Thai aid teams, comprising search and rescue specialists from the Royal Thai Armed Forces' Development Command and medical emergency response specialists from the Army Medical Department, then left for Nepal via a C-130 transport aircraft. They were also taking with them a water purification machine, one tonne of medical supply, ready-to-eat rice and canned food, as well as drinking water and 1,000 blankets. The Thai aid teams will initially stay in Nepal for one week. Meanwhile, the Thai Ministry of Public Health has sent an assessment team to Kathmandu, Nepal's capital, to work together with officials of the Thai Embassy in Kathmandu and Nepalese public health authorities to survey quake victims' needs before the ministry's first batch of medical personnel will fly to the Himalayan country on April 29. The Thai Ministry of Public Health plans to send four batches of its medical personnel, 16-17 of them in each batch, to work at a field hospital to be set up at a targeted area based on its earlier survey, rotating on a two-week basis. (TNA)