BEIJING, Oct. 9 (Xinhuanet) -- The Chinese government sent a 49-member international rescue team Sunday morning to earthquake-hit areas in Pakistan for humanitarian aids.

    This was the fourth international rescue team that China has sent abroad since 2003.

    The Chinese International Rescue Team was jointly set up by theChina Seismological Bureau, an engineering unit of the People's Liberation Army and the General Hospital of the Armed Police on April 27, 2001.

    The 222-member team is equipped with modern probing, demolitionand first-aid facilities, 20-plus rescue hounds and at least 20 rescue vehicles.

    The team has been heavily involved in five major rescue operations at home and abroad over the past four years, including rescue efforts in quake-hit areas in China, Algeria and Iran, as well as in countries devastated by the Indian Ocean tsunami.

    During its rescue operations in Algeria following an earthquakein May 2003, the Chinese International Rescue Team found a 12-year-old boy alive in the debris of a collapsed buildings. Of all the 38 international rescue teams to Algeria that year, only two found surviving victims in the quake debris.

    Following the Indian Ocean earthquake-triggered tsunami on Dec.26, 2004, the Chinese International Rescue Team sent 70 members intwo groups to the worst-hit areas in Banda Aceh, Indonesia for humanitarian aids. The rescuers treated more than 10,000 injured people in 30 days, winning wide-spread acclaim from the locals as well as the international community at large. Enditem