An earthquake rescue medical team organized by the Ministry of Health left Beijing for quake-hit Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Yushu in China's Qinghai Province at 11 a.m. Thursday.

The medical team includes 93 doctors and nurses from Beijing and Tianjin specializing in general surgery, neurosurgery and paediatrics.

The medical team, expected to work for two weeks in the quake-hit area, took six tons of medical rescue with them.

Some 20 ambulances are also being transported to the quake-hit area from Beijing.

About 170 medical staff from the provinces of Sichuan, Yunnan, Shaanxi, Gansu, Guangdong and the autonomous regions of Xinjiang and Tibet are also heading to the quake-hit area.

The Ministry of Health has already dispatched five medical teams with 287 staff to the quake-hit area.

Meanwhile, Ministry of Civil Affairs has allocated 20,000 tents, 50,000 cotton-padded jackets and 50,000 quilts to the quake-hit area from seven disaster relief material reserves in the cities of Tianjin, Shenyang, Zhengzhou, Hefei, Wuhan, Chengdu and Xi'an.

(Xinhua News Agency April 15, 2010)