Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Sunday visited a mobile hospital set up by a Chinese search and rescue team in south Pakistan's Thatta, commending China's relief efforts for flood victims.

The 55-member Chinese rescue team have set up tents and a mobile hospital at Thatta police headquarters late Saturday to provide medical services to the flood victims after they arrived at the district, about 100 km northeast of Karachi, Sindh Province.

Thatta is now the worst flood-hit district where hundreds of thousands of people have been affected. China is the first foreign country to have sent a relief team to this region.

"They are working for humanity of the people who are suffering water-borne diseases...That is what we require now," Malik told Xinhua with reference to the team members who are mostly experienced doctors and nurses.

"They have very good medical facilities and good doctors. I think that is the best China could do," Malik said.

"China is always the truest and good friend (of Pakistan), and I always say 'Long live the Pakistan-China friendship'," he said.

China has provided a total of 120 million yuan ($17.7 million) worth of humanitarian supplies to Pakistan in three batches.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said Saturday that China's humanitarian aid to Pakistan was timely, efficient, sincere and without any additional conditions.

Sindh is now the worst-affected in Pakistan in terms of surface area. Out of its 23 districts, 19 have been ravaged by floods, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Friday.

The Pakistani authorities have ordered an evacuation from Thatta after the swollen Indus river burst its banks.

The month-long devastating floods, the worst in Pakistan's history, have killed at least 1,600 people, affected over 20 million others and destroyed 900,000 homes.

(Xinhua News Agency August 29, 2010)