Taipei, April 15 (CNA) A total of 600 Taiwanese and Japanese people are poised to attempt a Guinness world record in June with a mass three-legged race as part of expanding links between the two countries since the devastating earthquake that struck Japan March last year.

The event organizers -- Taiwan's Tourism Bureau and Japan's Junior Chamber International -- said the event will be a means of expressing Japan's gratitude for Taiwan's tremendous humanitarian aid in the wake of the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunami.

After the disaster, Taiwan donated about 20 billion Japanese yen (US$260.64 million) in cash to the Japanese quake victims, 90 percent of which came from private donors.

The participants will be a mixture of 400 Japanese and 200 Taiwanese, the bureau said, and they will be making a bid to break language and cultural barriers to create a strong brotherhood through what it described a "harsh physical challenge."

"It's not going to be easy, and we will be there to witness if they can make it," Cheng Yi-ping, a section chief of the bureau's International Travel Division, said recently.

"We will try our best to go hand-in-hand with Taiwan in the same direction," said Hirotaka Takase, one of the chamber members.

The event is scheduled to take place at the Kuanshan Riverside Park in Taipei, where the 600 participants will try to walk for 50 meters.

The current record was set in 2009, when 160 people in Hong Kong marched for 200 meters.

(By Lee Hsin-Yin)
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