Russia is ready to dispatch an Il-76 plane with a mobile hospital, food and medicine to aid Haiti earthquake victims, said a spokeswoman for the Emergency Situations Ministry on Wednesday.

She said 45 people, including 20 doctors will leave for Haiti via the plane on Thursday.

The mobile hospital equipped with diagnostic, therapeutic and surgery facilities, including an intensive care unit for six to ten beds, can accommodate up to 50 patients at one time, added the spokeswoman.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev earlier on Wednesday sent his condolences to his Haitian counterpart Rene Preval over the magnitude-7 quake, the strongest ever recorded on the poor Caribbean island.

"I ask you to pass on my profound condolences to the victims' families and my sincere expression of sympathy and support to everyone affected by this natural disaster," said the message published on the Kremlin website.

A major earthquake rocked Haiti on Tuesday, crushing thousands of buildings, including the presidential palace and the UN peacekeeping headquarters, and trapping untold numbers of people in the rubble of the capital city of Santo Domingo.

Most of Haiti's 9 million people are desperately poor, and after years of political instability the country has no real construction standards.

(Xinhua News Agency January 14, 2010)