PARIS, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) -- France decided
to dispatch civil security service and gendarmes to participate in rescue
operation in Haiti, where a powerful earthquake has caused numerous victims
and destructions, the Foreign Ministry said Wednesday in a statement.
Minister Bernard Kouchner said French
Crisis Center of the Foreign Ministry has been mobilized. Under the instruction
of President Nicolas Sarkozy, civil security detachments and squads of
gendarmes will be urgently sent to the site, the statement added.
According to local media, three military
planes carrying 100 firefighters and gendarmes have already left for Haiti
in the morning.
The 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit south
of the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince on Tuesday. Due to difficult communication
at present, the accurate casualty was not clear yet, but the powerful quake
was feared to have claimed lives of hundreds of local population and United
Nations aiding personnel working there.