A woman mourns her child’s death at a school destroyed by the earthquake. (Reuters)

A woman stands beside her house damaged by Cyclone Nargis. (Reuters)

New Delhi, May 15: Playing the pan-Asian good Samaritan, India today decided to send planeloads of relief to earthquake-hit China and teams of doctors to Myanmar.

The relief effort puts Delhi at the centre of an international campaign to deliver humanitarian aid to people in two tightly controlled countries.

The UN has warned that a monumental humanitarian catastrophe is in the making in Myanmar but China’s regime is widely believed to have responded more sensitively after the May 12 earthquake.

In sending out its relief-cum-peace patrols, India sees an opportunity to place itself firmly in the middle of an international effort.

Officials in New Delhi point to the effort India mounted after the December 2004 tsunami when it sent relief to Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the Maldives. That effort boosted the country’s image as well as its ability to convince western powers that its reach extended across the Indian Ocean region.

An Indian Air Force Ilyushin 76 aircraft carrying 50 doctors, paramedics and four “bricks” (about six tonnes) of medicines and tents will leave for Yangon on Saturday morning following a request from the Myanmar government.

More than 30,000 people are feared to have died and thousands more have gone missing since Cyclone Nargis hit the country on May 3.

The Indian doctors will probably be the second team of international aid workers to reach Myanmar.

Earlier this week, Yangon allowed entry to workers from neighbouring Thailand. The access of the two teams of army doctors that India is sending to the affected areas will be controlled by the Myanmar junta in co-ordination with the Indian embassy in Yangon.

“We have received a specific request for doctors from the armed forces,” a defence ministry source said. “Where they will be sent after landing in Yangon is still being worked out.”

With Saturday’s airlift, India will have delivered a total of 130 tonnes of relief material to Myanmar. Earlier, it sent relief in two ships — two AN-32s — and an IL-76 aircraft.

On Monday, another IL-76 will fly from New Delhi to the Chinese city of Chengdu where thousands were buried under rubble and thousands more left homeless by the May 12 quake. An IAF officer said there could be five airlifts from Delhi and Kanpur to Chengdu after Monday’s sorties.

Beijing has asked Delhi for help, just as it has welcomed international aid, but it is not allowing international aid workers into the quake-affected areas of Sichuan province. The air force officer said the message from China requesting help was specific. China has asked for tents, blankets, sleeping bags, generators, water purifiers, wheel chairs, stretchers, cutters, medicines and portable cabins.

While Yangon has allowed only a trickle of the international aid to flow in, China has imposed no such restriction, but has asked that the world community respond to its specific requests.

In Myanmar, where US-led international sanctions are in place against the military regime, the first of American aid was allowed in on Monday and commentators in the US have suggested a bread bombing of the country to get help, past the junta, to the affected people.

A US Navy flotilla and troops are currently in Myanmar’s neighbour Thailand for an exercise.