A shipment of emergency relief supplies left the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen this evening (Wednesday) for Port Vila, the capital of Vanuatu, to support earthquake relief efforts in the Pacific island nation.

Li Ming, spokesman for the China International Development Co-operation Agency (CIDA), announced last week that the Chinese government had provided US$1 million in emergency aid to Vanuatu to support disaster relief and reconstruction efforts.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said on Monday that China had sent four engineering experts at the request of the Vanuatu government to help with the aftermath of the earthquake in the country.

A 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck Port Vila on 17 December, causing significant loss of life and damage.