Rescue teams from all over rushed to Haiti to provide assistance.
Among the countries that have offered assistance:
• Brazil’s Ministry of Defense ordered its troops in the country to offer whatever assistance they can, Brazil’s official news agency reported. The South American nation has 1,266 troops — including 250 in an engineering unit — in Haiti as part of a U.N. stabilization force.
• Canada had a five-man team already in Haiti as part U.N. relief efforts there. All five were helping with the relief effort, Capt. Elizabeth Tremblay told CNN.
• China sent a 60-member rescue team, including three sniffer dogs which arrived Thursday, the official news agency Xinhua reported. Taiwan also sent a team of 23 rescuers and two dogs late Wednesday, according to its Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
• Cuba sent an additional 30 doctors, plus medical supplies, to join the 344 doctors and paramedics it already had working throughout Haiti on humanitarian missions, said Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez.
• France, Haiti’s former colonial ruler, dispatched two planeloads of rescue personnel, one from Guadeloupe in the Caribbean and one from Marseilles, France.
• Iceland was sending a 37-member search-and-rescue team and offered to help evacuate foreign nationals, its foreign ministry said.
• A four-man rescue team from Israel was scheduled to arrive in Haiti Thursday morning. After that 220 people on two jets are scheduled to depart for Haiti. That group will bring a field hospital and a rescue team.
• Japan offered $5 million, $300,000 worth of emergency supplies such as tents, and an emergency research team.
• Russia was sending three cargo planes, carrying supplies and more than 120 specialists. The specialists included doctors to staff a mobile hospital, Emergency Situations Ministry spokeswoman Elena Chernova told CNN. The mobile hospital “has intensive therapy, surgery, diagnostics, ultrasound, X-ray, electrocardiogram modules, as well as a blood test laboratory,” and can accommodate 50 patients at a time, she said.
• Spain was sending three planeloads of aid — two from Panama in Central America and one from Madrid, the Spanish capital, CNN affiliate CNN+ reported. Spain also was making 3 million euros ($4.35 million) available for aid and will coordinate the European Union response.
• The United Kingdom also pledged to send survey teams.
• Search-and-rescue teams from cities in the United States also were headed to Haiti, including teams from Fairfax, Virginia; Los Angeles, California; and Miami, Florida.
