(CNN) -- A massive emergency response operation is under way in northern Japan, with world

governments and international aid groups coming together to bring relief to the beleaguered
island nation.

According to Japan's Foreign Affairs Ministry, 91 countries and regions and 6 international
organizations have extended offers of assistance.

The Japanese government has received 11 urban search and rescue teams, the group said in a
situation report, including teams from the United States, South Korea, Australia, Germany,
Mexico, New Zealand, China, Hungary, Singapore and the United Kingdom.

Japan's own search and rescue team was in New Zealand, assisting with recovery from the recent
Christchurch earthquake, when the quake and tsunami struck Japan on Friday.

Here is a sampling of relief efforts under way:

United States

Two search-and-rescue teams from the United States arrived in the hard-hit coastal city of
Ofunato, which was severely damaged in the quake. It took their convoy six hours to travel from
Misawa Air Base on Monday.

Nearly 150 people and 12 dogs trained to detect live victims arrived in Japan late Sunday,
according to Los Angeles Fire Department Inspector Don Kunitomi. Hailing from California and
Fairfax County, Virginia, the teams are the only two in the United States qualified to respond to
disasters on such a scale, Kunitomi said.

"There are a lot hazards that have never been experienced by a search-and-rescue team,"
Kunitomi said. "There's this radiation factor. We do have radiation equipment ... but no one has
ever really experienced this."

"It looks like it'll be part Katrina because of the flooding and part New Zealand because of the
earthquake," he continued, referring to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and last month's earthquake in
Christchurch, New Zealand.

The teams traveled in a convoy of two buses, several flatbed trailers and half a dozen utility
vehicles.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is coordinating the overall American
response. The United States is also sending experts from the Department of Energy and the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission to offer technical assistance to the Japanese government.
On Sunday, the USS Ronald Reagan started delivering aid in the coastal regions of Japan's
Miyagi Prefecture.

Crew members, in conjunction with the Japan Maritime Self Defense Forces, conducted 20
sorties delivering aid pallets. Eight U.S. and Japanese helicopters were used to distribute the
pallets, according to Sgt. Maj. Stephen Valley of U.S. Forces Japan.

China

A 15-member Chinese search and rescue team has begun work in Ofunato, according to China's
state-run Xinhua news agency. The group brought 4 tons of material and equipment and is
expected to work in the area for up to 10 days, the agency reported.

The gesture comes just six months after the two countries sparred in a territorial dispute over the
Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea. Tokyo held a Chinese trawler captain after his fishing boat
collided with Japanese coast guard ships near the islands in September.

There also remains a great deal of tension between China and Japan, left over from Japan's
invasion and occupation of part of China from 1931 to 1945. The wartime atrocities still fuel
widespread distrust of Japan by many Chinese.

However, "China is also a country prone to earthquake disasters, and we fully empathize with
how they feel now," Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said Monday.

China has been hit with two devastating quakes in the past three years. And it is conducting
domestic quake rescue efforts in southwestern Yunnan province after a deadly 5.8-magnitude
quake Thursday.

United Kingdom

A British team comprising 63 fire service search-and-rescue specialists, two dogs and a medical
support team is in Japan, the U.K. foreign office said. The group has 11 metric tons of rescue
equipment, including heavy lifting and cutting equipment to extract people trapped in debris, the
government said.

New Zealand
.

New Zealand has sent a rescue team of 10 from Christchurch to the hard-hit Japanese coastal city
of Sendai. Christchurch is cleaning up from its own earthquake on February 21 that killed 123
people.