Taiwan quake rescuer vows not to give up

HANWANG, China (Reuters) - Daniel Chen doesn't have time for politics at the moment. He and his sniffer dog Bailey are too busy rummaging through debris looking for survivors from last week's devastating earthquake in southwest China.

Chen is part of Taiwan's relief effort to its political and diplomatic rival China, where a quake in its Sichuan province has killed at least 30,000 people.

China and Taiwan have been ruled separately since defeated Nationalist forces fled to the island at the end of a civil war with the Communists in 1949. China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its wing.

But these political considerations were far from the minds of the Taiwanese rescuers, who arrived on Friday and started their round the clock search on Saturday morning.

"We will go on working 24 hours round-the-clock. We think there are survivors right here," Chen, director of the Red Cross's department of disaster relief and voluntary service in Taiwan, told Reuters in an interview.

In Hanwang, a quaint town ensconced in a lush valley in the mountainous province, it was deathly quiet late on Sunday night except for the occasional barking from Bailey -- a sign that there could still be life under the rubble and mangled ruins.

With their sophisticated photographic equipment and sound detectors, the 22 men from Taiwan -- an island notoriously prone to earthquakes itself -- and their dog are hoping to extricate a dozen people who lie buried after the 7.9 quake last Monday.

They are part of an international effort to save lives, and teams from countries including Russia, Japan and Singapore are also already on the ground, helping more than 100,000 Chinese troops in the rescue work.

Some 16 men and women were enjoying a game of mahjong in one house when the earth shook. Only four managed to get away before the house collapsed.

"To save lives, we can't give up hope, even though it's been so long," Chen said.

Earlier on Sunday, the team rescued two dogs, the pets of one household.

"The family told us that their daughter was trapped together with the dogs and could still be alive, but we decided not to go on searching there because we couldn't detect any signs of life after the two dogs were rescued," Chen said.

"We are very happy to save the dogs. They have lives. And if they are alive after so long, there must still be people who are alive and who must be saved," Chen said.

(Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)