Weak and broken utterances were heard from a Haitian woman on a makeshift operating table, but they seemed more powerful than crying.

Leaning feebly against the one beside her as a Chinese doctor cleaned her suppurative wound, she struggled hard.

Five days after the earthquake, pains continued to plague the Caribbean nation. At least 14 aftershocks measuring 5 or above on the Richter scale have been recorded since Tuesday's devastating quake, according to the US Geological Survey.

While pulling more people alive from the rubble turned less realistic, providing aid to survivors has become more imperative.

A group of Chinese medical workers have been working at a temporary site near the Haitian prime minister's office building in Port-au-Prince, in a bid to help relieve pains of the injured in the disaster and bring more out of danger.

Jacques was another patient. The seven-year-old boy was seriously hurt in his left knee.

Jacques' father covered the boy's eyes with his big hand when treatment was going on, wiping the kid's tears, or more, the catastrophe off his little memory.

"He has got a lacerated wound, and it goes deep into the muscles," Zhang Qian, a member with the Chinese rescue team said of Jacques' injury, adding they would need to rid the infection first and bind up the wound.

Apart from curing quake victims, the rescue team was also distributing medicine, giving advice to local residents with chronic diseases who had no access to daily health care, and sterilizing the temporary camps nearby to prevent an outbreak of epidemics.

After arriving in Port-au-Prince on Thursday, the Chinese rescue team has been working round the clock to save lives. On Sunday, Chinese rescue workers were rushing to other quake-hit areas in the country as the first batch of 90 tons of relief supplies provided by China, including medicine, tents, water purification supplies, food and drinking water, arrived in Port-au-Prince.

The aid is part of a relief package worth 30 million yuan (US$4.41 million) the Chinese government announced Friday.

Jude Hervey Day, director of the Haitian prime minister's office, told Xinhua that he was impressed by their efficiency and dedication.

"The Chinese rescue team responded in the first time after the disaster. We are able to start saving people with their medicine and on-site treatment."

"Your people are still with us now. Under such difficult circumstances, your help is indeed invaluable," Day said.

A Haitian official in charge of aid distribution also spoke highly of the assistance from China and expressed gratitude. "On behalf of the Haitian people, I want to say thank you (the Chinese people)," she told Xinhua.

(Xinhua News Agency January 19, 2010)