The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Ms Liz O'Donnell, today announced an emergency assistance package totaling £400,000 as an immediate response to the earthquake in El Salvador.
Ms O'Donnell said: "This aid is intended to have an immediate impact by supporting the emergency agencies already active on the ground."
Of the £400,000 aid package announced today, a grant of £200,000 will be made to the International Federation of the Red Cross which is supporting the search and rescue effort.
The remaining £200,000 is being made available for other emergency efforts - Ireland Aid is already in discussions with Irish aid agencies who are actively responding to the emergency.
The European Commission plans to send an initial two million euros in aid to victims of the El Salvador earthquake.
European Commissioner Mr Poul Nielson said the European Union's executive body was preparing to allocate the money, which will be used to provide drinking water, sanitation, shelter, emergency food aid and medical supplies.
This is a very initial decision and it will be followed up by further commitments that will reflect the needs that we can identify on the spot.
EU aid will be distributed through organisations such as the Red Cross, Medecins sans Frontieres and Medecins du Monde.
Meanwhile relatives of the 1,200 people trapped when Saturday's earthquake in El Salvador stood by their crushed homes waiting for rescuers to haul out the bodies of loved ones.
The country's worst natural disaster since a 1986 tremor killed nearly 1,500 people, Saturday's quake of 7.6 on the Richter scale and rocked most of Central America.
At least 403 people are dead, 779 injured and hundreds missing in El Salvador after a strong earthquake shook the small Central American nation on Saturday, setting off landslides and burying hundreds of homes.
Most of the dead were pulled from the rubble in the San Salvador suburb of Santa Tecla, where a massive mudslide engulfed as many as 500 homes.
Additional reporrting by Reuters