An initial group of about 30 firefighters, police and coastguard workers left on a Japan Airlines flight to Beijing, officials said.

Equipped with fibrescopes to look under debris and gas detectors, they hope to travel to the disaster zone on Friday.

A second batch of about 30 workers will leave on Friday with rescue dogs. Japan is also considering sending a separate medical team of some 20 people.

'Since the earthquake happened there's been a significant amount of time and the situation is extremely critical,' team leader Takashi Koizumi told reporters at Tokyo's main international airport ahead of their departure.

'First and foremost we want to save human lives. That's our main focus.'

From Taiwan, relief workers from the Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation, Dharma Drum Mountain and Fo Guang Shan were to arrive in the worst-hit Sichuan province on regular flights later on Thursday, the groups said.

'The bond between the two sides across the Taiwan Strait is very close and we want to show our concerns' for the quake victims, Hsing Yun said before the departure of 50 doctors and Fo Guang Shan monks.

A 22-member rescue team organised by the Red Cross Society was scheduled to head to Sichuan on Friday to join relief efforts, said Rebecca Lin, a Red Cross spokeswoman.

Also on Thursday, two charter cargo planes provided by Air Macau and Taiwan's China Airlines delivered to Sichuan hundreds of tonnes of relief items donated by various local charities.

The religious groups, other charities and corporations have also provided tens of millions of US dollars in relief funds and items.

Retired petrochemicals tycoon Wang Yung-ching, former chief of the Formosa Plastics Corporation, has pledged 100 million renminbi (S$19.78 billion) in aid.

No to other foreign aid
China has refused to commit to accepting any further foreign rescue teams into the quake-stricken country, after it allowed in emergency workers from Japan to assist with aid efforts.

'We will, according to the actual situation and the receiving capability in the localities, give serious consideration to the request of foreign rescue teams,' foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters.

He was speaking in response to a question asking if and when China would accept more foreign rescuers in.

Quake victims angry, impatient for aid
Desperate and destitute, the people of the quake-hit village of Xinshi in the mountains of south-west China camp under tatty bivouacs in front of ruined homes, grumbling that their government has forsaken them.

China's massive relief operation has hardly touched Xinshi, though it lies only 30 minutes down a rutted track from a highway on which military convoys carrying supplies thunder towards more hopeless areas.

'We have no money to survive, we couldn't buy anything anyway. What will we do about our children?' complained Ms Zhang Fuyang, standing outside her makeshift shelter cobbled together from plastic sheeting and a basic wooden frame. 'Nobody has told us anything.'

Xinshi, a small farming community ringed by sheer, mist-covered mountains, is just one of hundreds of villages reduced to ruin in the valleys of northern Sichuan.

Many remain cut off by landslides and broken roads, delaying the arrival of aid and leaving bereft residents feeling abandoned.

'Some soldiers went through here yesterday. We've not seen anybody since,' said Mr Zhang Gongchuang, as his wife slept under a tent and children played cards.

In the same building as Mr Zhang's damaged home was an empty medical clinic. No-one was sure how many people had died.

'We've had no medical staff here since my father died,' Zhang said. 'We have no power, and we don't know when we will get it back.'

Lining the highway to Beichuan county, where more than 7,000 have died, desperate villagers were holding up signs made from ripped cardboard at military trucks driving past, saying: 'We've nowhere to live. We want to survive.' Volunteers who pulled over to hand out bottles of water and basic food were mobbed.

Further down the road in Anchang, however, food was being sold on the streets.

State radio has appealed to quake refugees not to drink unsafe water and not to steal relief supplies.

Mr Zhang Gongchuang, surveying the wreckage of his home, had other concerns. 'Even if we have food, how could we prepare it? We have no knives. How can we eat?' he asked. - REUTERS, AFP