Japan has announced it will provide medical supplies worth 100,000 U.S. dollars to North Korea following Thursday's devastating train explosion in that country.

It is the first time for Japan to provide aid to the North since 2000 when it delivered 500,000 tons of rice to the impoverished communist state through the World Food Program.

In Moscow, the Itar-Tass News Agency said a transport plane carrying Russian medical supplies, tents, blankets and clothes will be departing for the North on Monday.

Meanwhile, the North's official KCNA news agency said Sunday that the first batch of Chinese aid, worth some 500,000 yuan, had arrived in the North. Beijing has promised to provide Pyongyang with emergency supplies worth 10 million yuan or some 1.5 billion won.