RAWALPINDI, June 2: A Pakistan Army medical contingent along with a 75-bed field hospital left here on Friday in a PAF C-130 aircraft to conduct rescue and relief operations in earthquake hit areas of Java, Indonesia.

The field hospital being commanded by Lt-Col Naseer Ahmed comprises a team of 15 specialists including lady doctors, general duty doctors and 49 paramedics and female nurses.

The medical team of Pakistan Army is capable of treating 300 out door patients per day including surgery.

The field hospital is equipped with a mobile surgical unit which is capable of undertaking 25 major surgical operations in a day.

It carries an operation theatre, X-ray units, ultrasound, field laboratory, dental unit, orthopaedic unit and 10 tons of medicines for provision of medical aid to the earthquake affected Indonesian brothers.

The field hospital will be deployed in the earthquake hit area of central Indonesia in two phases. Another C-130 sortie will leave for Indonesia in couple of days to complete the deployment.

Bidding the medical contingent farewell at PAF Base Chaklala, Deputy Surgeon General Pakistan Army Maj-Gen Farrukh Seir said all efforts must be made to help the earthquake victims in the friendly country.

He asked the departing troops that they must utilise the experience which they gained after a similar catastrophe in the country on October 8, 2005.

A powerful earthquake had hit Bantul, Central Indonesia, on Saturday killing over 5,000 people while leaving thousands homeless.

On December 26, 2004, a quake of 9.1 intensity had triggered a tsunami that crashed into 11 countries across the Indian Ocean killing more than 230,000 people, most of them in the Indonesian province of Aceh.—APP