China rebuffed international offers of sniffer dogs and search-and-rescue experts to help in its huge earthquake relief operation, but countries still sent cash and prayers on Wednesday.
Despite whole towns being flattened in Sichuan province, burying thousands, Australian expertise was Wednesday politely declined and frustrated Japanese teams were forced to turn around at the airport.
South Korean specialists were also rejected even though China faces a race against time to find survivors buried under rubble in towns scattered across the remote and mountainous disaster zone.
"We were told that China cannot receive rescuers now due to the poor condition of transportation systems," said a Japanese foreign ministry official.
Japan is ready to dispatch rescue and medical teams of some 80 people, as well as sniffer dogs, the official said, warning that the window of opportunity for rescues was short.
"In general, the possibility of finding survivors decreases after three days from a disaster," he said.
Australia also had a "fairly sizeable" team of search and rescue experts on standby to fly to the disaster area, but was also told Sichuan's shattered transport system made it impossible.
"The extreme challenges of transport and communication in the earthquake region mean that at this point the aid cannot be received," a spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said.
Similarly, South Korea's offer of 41 rescue workers and more than 20 medical staff was also declined, although China accepted an aid donation of one million dollars, a foreign ministry spokesman in Seoul said.
China has mobilised 100,000 military and police, with troops parachuting and speed-boating into remote areas while planes and helicopters air-dropped emergency supplies.
Beijing said Tuesday that conditions were "not yet ripe" to accept foreign rescue teams.
The official death toll from the 7.9-magnitude earthquake has now reached about 15,000 with 40,000 missing or buried under rubble.
Japan has provided China with satellite images of the devastated area and China hoped to get images from the United States, France and Canada under an international accord on disaster aid, state media reported.
Pope Benedict XVI called for prayers for the victims of the disaster. "My thoughts go out at this time to the people in Sichuan and adjoining regions in China severely affected by an earthquake," the pope said at the Vatican.
Benedict said he felt "spiritually close" to those affected by "such a devastating calamity."
Taiwan is sending volunteers and about 150 tonnes of relief goods for the rescue effort, officials said. Twenty-six volunteers from the Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation would depart early Thursday, the foundation said.
Two charter flights would also take 150 tonnes of food, tents, blankets, sleeping bags, body bags and other relief items donated by various groups and the Red Cross Society. Taiwanese entrepreneurs have donated tens of millions of dollars in relief funds.
The British government said Wednesday it would donate one million pounds (1.25 million euros, two million dollars) to help the victims of the quake.
The pledge came as the Foreign Office and a travel company confirmed that 19 British tourists remain missing in the devastated region.
The holidaymakers were travelling by coach Monday from Chengdu to Wolong in Wenchuan county in Sichuan province when the quake struck.
Britain's international development minister Douglas Alexander said: "We are concerned for the UK nationals as yet unaccounted for and grateful to the Chinese authorities for their assistance."
A spokesman for Travel Collection, part of the Kuoni holiday company, said: "All lines of communication to the region are down and as such no further information is known at this time."
France said it was sending a planeload of aid including tents, blankets and medical supplies worth some 250,000 euros (390,000 dollars).
Between 70 and 80 tonnes of relief supplies will be flown to China on Friday to be distributed by aid groups, in particular the Chinese Red Cross, said foreign ministry spokeswoman Pascale Andreani.
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