(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-05-20 15:50

CHENGDU - Foreign countries heeded China's plea for medical aid for earthquake survivors, sending doctors and a portable hospital to help treat millions of homeless and injured.

China has said it would accept foreign medical teams, as the relief efforts shifted from searching for survivors to caring for the homeless. A growing number of countries responded to the call, dispatching doctors to the quake area Tuesday.

A Russian medical team with a mobile hospital arrived Tuesday in the Sichuan provincial capital Chengdu, Xinhua reported.

Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said a 23-member medical team will leave Tuesday for China. Crews of doctors were also en route from Germany and Italy, Red Cross Society of China spokesman Yang Huixin said.

Rescue workers resumed the search for bodies on the second day of a three-day national mourning period declared by the Chinese government, an unprecedented gesture to honor the dead whose numbers were expected to exceed 50,000.

Because of plans to bury bodies quickly, the government said DNA samples will be taken from corpses to help with later identification, Xinhua said. Identified bodies will be cremated, although burial will be allowed where no cremation is possible.

During the three-day mourning period, flags were flying at half-staff and entertainment events have been canceled. The Olympic torch relay has also been suspended.

The confirmed death toll stood at 34,073, and another 5,260 remained buried in Sichuan, the provincial government has said. Almost 250,000 are injured.