Helping Hands For Pakistan

Nations Offering Money, Aid, And Condolences

(CBS/AP)  Some teams had already reached Pakistan on Sunday, including the first contingent of a British emergency rescue team.

Also already on the scene is a United Nations team of top disaster coordination officials who set up three emergency centers to coordinate relief efforts.

"U.N. agencies responded quickly to the crisis in Pakistan and India, combining programs of humanitarian relief and medical care of the World Health Organization and relief agencies including the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the disaster coordination units," says CBS News Foreign Affairs Analyst Pamela Falk. "U.N. relief organizations have experience in dealing with a tragedy of this proportion and by Sunday had established centers in Islamabad and in Muzaffarabad to coordinate the aid pouring in."

A Spanish group, United Firefighters without Frontiers, said its rescue team had already arrived in Islamabad with two large field hospitals and two tons of emergency equipment.

"We have sent 21 specialists in search, rescue and emergency medical attention of victims, as well as seven rescue dogs," said Enrique Fernandez, director of operations.

A Chinese emergency response team of 50 arrived in Islamabad on Sunday, also with search dogs, as well as communication equipment, blankets, medical and relief supplies, Pakistan said. A second Chinese planeload of relief goods was due Monday.

A Japanese disaster team of 50 was dispatched to Islamabad, where a medical team deployed by the Japanese Red Cross Society is expected to arrive Monday.

Russia said it was sending a plane carrying emergency workers, trucks, equipment and two weeks' supplies on Sunday, and the Swedish Rescue Services Agency was sending tents and blankets. It also offered communications equipment.

The Czech government said it was ready to send rescue teams with sniffer dogs.

The Malaysian Red Crescent said it was sending a relief team to Pakistan as soon as it received clearance from Islamabad, and that the team would be joined by Red Cross and Crescent workers from other Southeast Asian nations, including Indonesia, the Philippines and Singapore. A Malaysian government emergency response team was expected, too.

Pope Benedict XVI and Queen Elizabeth II joined senior officials of South Korea, China and Iraq on Sunday in sending condolences to the people of Pakistan.

Benedict told the crowd in St. Peter's Square that he prayed "that the international community will be swift and generous in its response to the disaster."