A search and rescue team from Taiwan was working against the clock yesterday in quake-stricken El Salvador, but the chances of finding more survivors was fading as time went by, officials at Taiwan's embassy in San Salvador said.
The earthquake, measuring between 7.6 and 7.9 on the open-ended Richter scale, struck on Saturday morning, and has so far claimed nearly 700 lives.
"We are about to pass the critical 72 hours since the quake hit at around 11:30am on Saturday," Diego Lin (林銘泉), press secretary of Taiwan's embassy in San Salvador, told the Taipei Times at 11am on Tuesday, El Salvador time, or early yesterday morning in Taipei.
After a 25-hour flight, the 30-member team from Taiwan, accompanied by Taiwan's ambassador to the country, Yen Bing-fan (顏秉璠), swiftly moved into the worst-hit area of Santa Tecla to help with rescue and relief operations, Lin said.
The team reached the country at around 10am on Monday.
"The locals were very thankful for all kinds of assistance from various countries. Some felt especially grateful for the Taiwanese team, which had come a long way to help," Lin said.
On Tuesday, Le Prensa Grafica, the largest newspaper in El Salvador, published a photo of the Taiwanese rescue team searching for survivors, Lin added.
However Lin, who has accompanied Taiwanese reporters to cover the event in the Santa Tecla area, painted a dim view of what he saw in the region.
"A lot of the buildings were single- or two-storey structures and many of them were simply flattened," said the press secretary dispatched to the country by Taiwan's Government Information Office.
The Taiwanese team is composed of 27 firefighters, two doctors and a civil engineer. The majority of the firefighters were involved in search and rescue operations at the Tunghsing building (東星大樓) in downtown Taipei that collapsed during the 921 earthquake.
Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has extended US$200,000 in aid to its Central American ally, while a group of lawmakers in Taipei has donated a further US$300,000 in relief funds and US$5 million in medical equipment.
Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said on Tuesday that the city government would dispatch a six-member medical team to El Salvador to help victims of the earthquake.
The team will depart as soon as the Cabinet-level Department of Health and the foreign ministry give the green light, Ma added.
Taipei and San Salvador, capital of El Salvador, maintain a sister-city relationship.
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