A 15-member Chinese rescue team arrived in Tokyo by air Sunday on a mission to search for survivors from Friday's earthquake and tsunami that devastated northeastern Japan.

Yutaka Banno, state secretary for foreign affairs, welcomed the rescue team at Haneda airport while Yin Guanghui, head of the Chinese team, said the team will make efforts to rescue as many people as possible. This is the first time Japan has accepted a rescue team from China.

Xinhua News Agency said in a dispatch from Tokyo that the team brought four tons of materials and equipment for search and rescue, power supplies and telecommunications and will immediately head for quake-hit areas to search for survivors.

Yin, head of the team and an official of the China Earthquake Administration, was quoted as telling Xinhua before leaving Beijing earlier Sunday that the team's main task is ''to search for survivors.''

Many members of the Chinese International Search and Rescue Team, from which Yin's delegation was dispatched, participated in rescue missions after Indonesia's tsunami disaster and earthquakes in Haiti, Pakistan and Wenchuan in southwest China.

On Friday, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao offered to extend necessary assistance to Japan to help in coping with the extensive damage from the quake. Similarly, China's Red Cross Society decided Saturday to donate 1 million yuan, about 12.4 million yen, in emergency aid to its Japanese counterpart.

==Kyodo