Seoul pledges assistance for quake-hit China

SEOUL, April 15 (Yonhap) -- South Korea has offered to provide necessary
assistance and supplies to China's Qinghai Province, hit earlier this week by a
powerful earthquake of 6.9 magnitude that left 589 people killed and some 10,000
others injured as of Thursday morning, a foreign ministry official said.
No South Korean casualty has yet been filed, but the quake that hit the western
Chinese province Wednesday destroyed nearly 90 percent of all homes, displacing
some 100,000 people there, ministry spokesman Kim Young-sun told a press
briefing.
"The government is in talks with the Chinese government on the provision of
emergency relief assistance. The government is fully prepared to send a rescue
team and relief supplies as soon as China files a request," Kim said.
The size of the rescue team or the amount of supplies will be decided after a
more thorough investigation by the Chinese government to determine the exact
extent of damage, he said.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan expressed
their deep sympathies in their separate letters to China, Kim said.
bdk@yna.co.kr
(END)

Delete & Prev | Delete & Next