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.

(Xinhua News Agency January 14, 2010)