TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japan will send its second medical team to Myanmar on Saturday to meet increasing health care needs in the Southeast Asian country after a powerful earthquake last month, Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya said.

Iwaya said at a press conference on Friday that in addition to the 37-member team, the government will also deliver additional humanitarian supplies such as feed water tanks and tents to schools in Myanmar's second-largest city Mandalay, located near the epicenter of the March 28 magnitude 7.7 quake.

Japan dispatched its first, 32-member medical team, including doctors and nurses, and a Self-Defense Forces transport airplane carrying medicines and medical equipment to Myanmar earlier this month, and has also provided relief supplies such as hygiene kits.

The junta ruling Myanmar after the military toppled the democratically elected government in a February 2021 coup, and several ethnic minority groups declared last week a temporary cease-fire in the country's civil war to prioritize relief work, and Iwaya stressed that a pause in the conflict is important for smooth humanitarian support.