Taiwan lawmakers urges China to accept Taiwan rescue teams (Roundup)

May 14, 2008, 14:11 GMT

Taipei - Several Taipei lawmakers on Wednesday urged China to accept Taiwanese search and rescue teams, saying China should not reject overseas aid workers for political reasons.

'The most important thing now is to rescue survivors. We hope China can put aside political considerations and accept Taiwan's search and rescue teams,' Pan Meng-an, a lawmaker from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), said.

'In natural disaster relief work, there should be no consideration of nations or national boundary. We hope China will not become the second Myanmar,' he said, referring to Myanmar's blocking entry of foreign aid workers to help victims of Cyclone Nargis which hit Myanmar on May 3, killing at least 32,000 people.

Chen Ying, another DPP lawmaker, chided China for blocking international aid after Taiwan's 1999 earthquake and said it is now barring foreign search and rescue teams from entering China.

'After Taiwan was hit by the earthquake in 1999, China said foreign countries had to apply to China to send aid to Taiwan. Now China, again for political reasons, is blocking foreign aid to China's quake victims,' she said.

On September 21, 1999, an earthquake measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale hit central Taiwan, killing 2,400 people.

After China's Sichuan Province was hit by an earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale on Monday, Taiwan offered to send relief material and search and rescue teams to China.

The Taiwan government, Red Cross and civic groups and enterprises are raising money for the quake victims.

On Wednesday, Taiwan pledged a two-phase two-billion-Taiwan-dollar (62.5-million-US-dollar) aid package to China' quake victims.

In the first phase, Taiwan will spend 800 million Taiwan dollars to send 2,000 tons of aid to China.

In the second phase, Taiwan will ask government employees to donate one day's earnings and raise public funds to buy more aid for China. This aid will be worth 1.2 billion Taiwan dollars.

Taiwan will start rushing the aid to Sichuan in charter flights, with the first two charter flights departing Thursday.

China agreed to accept Taiwanese aid and allow two Taiwanese Buddhist groups to send volunteers to Sichuan, but has refused to accept Taiwan's search and rescued teams, which are standing ready to fly to China.

China said the roads to the quake region are blocked by fallen stones, making it difficult for search and rescue teams to reach the quake areas, but many Taiwanese think China's refusal is politically motivated because of China's hostility towards Taiwanese independence.

China however has granted a Taiwanese request to launch humanitarian charter flights to rush relief material to Sichuan. Taiwan has banned direct air links with China since 1949, when the Chinese Civil War split Taiwan and China.

The first two humanitarian charter flights will depart from Taipei Thursday, and are to carry water, food, medicine, tents, blankets, sleeping bags, body bags and survival kits for the quake victims.