Pakistan said on Friday it was sending 21,000 tents to its close ally China to shelter survivors of the country's worst earthquake in a generation. China issued an urgent global appeal for millions of tents on Thursday following last week's devastating quake of 8.0 on the Richter scale, which killed more than 55,000 people. "Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has ordered immediate dispatch of 21,000 tents as relief for the affectees of the earthquake that hit southwestern parts of China on May 12," a Pakistani government statement said. So far 1,000 have already been airlifted to China and the rest are in the process of being sent, the statement added. Four plane loads of relief goods containing medicines, mineral water, blankets and mats will also be sent. Pakistan sent two plane loads of aid last week. Pakistan and China are close allies. Beijing contributed millions of dollars in aid after an earthquake killed 73,000 people in Pakistani Kashmir and northwestern Pakistan in October 2005. China's foreign ministry said on Thursday that the country needed 3.3 million tents or other portable shelters but had only received some 150,000 so far.