A rescue team went without dogs to the stricken country on Wednesday, and worked through the night using specialist equipment to locate suvivors.

But a day later they were still unable to link up with sister team Rapid Spain, which has six dogs.

Lives may have been lost because trained rescue dogs Gemma and Kelly are still in quarantine after returning from the Turkish earthquake zone, said Gloucestershire-based Rapid UK.

"From our point of view it's very, very difficult not to have those dogs available when you need them," Rapid UK director Graham Payne told BBC News Online.

"The Spanish were behind us in getting to Taiwan - they only got there two hours ago and we got there 24 hours ago," he said.

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"That's 24 hours of work the dogs could have done."

He added that Gemma and Kelly were still sorely missed. "The Spanish dogs are not experienced like our dogs, they are only very newly trained. It's meant a big problem."

When the team returned from Turkey less than a month ago it warned it would be less able to cope with emergencies over the following six months.

The charity presented an official request to allow the dogs home quarantine to Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Ministry of Agriculture on Friday.

It also collected a quarter of a million signatures on a petition, to be presented on 4 October.

With home quarantine, the dogs could be kept isolated but training could be kept up. They would be able to stay on call for immediate travel to disaster zones worldwide.

'Distressing'

"We have our own protocol for the dogs - they are not allowed to leave their handler's side or to go near any animal, and when they get back they are checked thoroughly by the Ministry of Agriculture vets," said Rapid UK member Sharon Gillam.

"These dogs are the frontline men. They do the work of eight men in less than half the time," she said. "This is very distressing."

The charity says it has popular support in countries including Spain, the United States, Switzerland and Japan.

UK Minister for Agriculture, Nick Brown, said when the dogs were quarantined: "It is impossible for us to relax the quarantine regulations for dogs coming in from a country where virulent, contagious rabies is endemic."