China, Japan and Russia joined hands in fighting the worst ever oil spill incident in the Korean history after activating the NOWPAP Regional Oil Spill Contingency Plan on 10 December 2007. With the assistance from the NOWPAP Marine Environmental Emergency Preparedness and Response Regional Activity Centre (MERRAC) and NOWPAP Regional Coordinating Unit, China has sent a ship with experts and sorbents on board and Japan dispatched a team of experts to join the international efforts to help clean-up the oil spilled off the coast of Taean, Republic of Korea. Since the response operations at the sea have come to the end and the clean-up efforts are now focusing on the shore, NOWPAP deactivated the contingency plan on 14 January 2008.  Realizing the risk of oil spills in the region and importance of cooperation among members, NOWPAP plans to have the second joint oil spill exercise in October 2008 in China.