China will offer further aid to disaster-stricken Afghanistan,
including sending its elite earthquake-relief squad to the
neighboring country if requested, government officials said
Thursday.
Meanwhile, Chinese seismologists flatly ruled out allegations that
the seismic shifts in the remote Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan
-- where over 2,000 people are feared to have died Monday night --
was likely caused by heavy bombardments by the United States.
Li
Qianghua, spokesman of the China Seismological
Bureau, said his agency will provide immediate technical and
personnel assistance to the disaster-ridden nation if the United
Nations and Afghanistan asks.
"We will send some members of our national earthquake emergency
rescue brigade to the region at the request of Afghanistan," he
said.
Established last April, the bureau's 214-member rescue squad is
armed with state-of-the-art disaster search and relief equipment as
well as extensive staff expertise, Li said. Its goal is to provide
first aid to disaster-devastated regions in and outside China.
The Red
Cross Society of China Thursday said in a statement that it
will dispatch US$50,000 in emergency humanitarian aid to help the
Afghan Red Crescent Society in disaster-relief efforts.
On
Monday, China airlifted 57.5-tons of material aid to Afghanistan.
This is the first of several packages in the US$3.6-million urgent
humanitarian assistance China promised to provide to the Afghan
interim administration when it was established in December.
Sun Yuxi, the Chinese Ambassador to Afghanistan, said he hoped
China's humanitarian aid materials -- including medical equipment,
medicine and stationery -- will play an effective role in helping
the victims.
The remaining emergency aid packages will be airlifted in two
planes every day until Sunday, said Deng Xijun, an official with
the Chinese Embassy in Kabul.
"Aid materials valued at US$600,000 were sent to Baghlan Province
from Kabul on Wednesday," Deng said. "They are instrumental to the
earthquake relief efforts."
Ambassador Sun promised that China will continue to provide
assistance to Afghanistan to the best of its ability.
While the international community is pooling assistance to
Afghanistan, some wires and websites are quoting a Russian
scientist who alleges the earthquake might have been triggered by
the heavy US bombardments in the Asian country.
Zhang Guomin, a senior Chinese seismologist, Thursday said there
was simply no possibility that bombs could have caused the seismic
disaster in Afghanistan.
Located at the intersection of the Europe-Asia seismic belt and the
India-Baikal seismic belt, Afghanistan has historically been an
earthquake-prone country, he said.
In
particular, earthquakes are relatively frequent in the Hindu Kush
mountain range, he said.
Chen Yong, another expert with the China Seismological Bureau,
agrees.
"It would take 60,000 to 100,000 TNT equivalent tons exploding 15
kilometers below the earth's surface to trigger a tremor of that
size in Afghanistan," Chen said. "The heaviest bombs the US dropped
in Afghanistan were less than 7 TNT equivalent tons."
(China Daily March 29,
2002)