Chinese rescuers were still looking for eight Chinese police officers buried under the debris of the devastating Haitian quake, a Chinese official said on Friday.

A Chinese rescue team of over 60 members had been dispatched from home, and the Chinese peacekeeping police in Haiti were looking for the eight police officers buried under the local UN building, said Wang Shuping, Chinese business representative in Haiti.

Four of the missing officers are part of a six-member team sent by China's Public Security Ministry to Port-au-Prince for peacekeeping consultations. They had just arrived in the Caribbean city on Tuesday afternoon.

The other four are with the Chinese peacekeeping police in Haiti.

The eight missing Chinese nationals were meeting UN officials in the building when the 7.3-magnitude quake struck Tuesday.

The rescuers had located the buried police officers, China's Public Security Ministry said Friday.

There are 142 Chinese peacekeeping police officers deployed in Haiti, and the other 138 are all accounted for.

Wang said some 230 Chinese were in Haiti when the quake occurred, and most of them are safe.

On Friday night, a chartered plane flew 11 staff members of China's ZTE communications company from Haiti to neighboring Dominican Republic.

The death toll from the Haitian earthquake may reach up to 45,000, according to UN preliminary estimates.

(Xinhua News Agency January 16, 2009)