Chinese police officers missing in Haiti named

BEIJING, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- China's Ministry of Public Security Friday named the eight Chinese police officers missing after the 7.3-magnitude quake in Haiti.

Four of the officers were in a team sent by the ministry to Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, for peacekeeping consultations, the ministry statement said. The team had just arrived in the Caribbean city on Tuesday afternoon.

The other four were officers of China's peacekeeping force in Haiti.

They were talking with U.N. staff in the headquarters of the UN Stabilization Mission in Port-au-Prince when the quake occurred at about 4:50 p.m. Tuesday local time, the statement said.

They were: Zhu Xiaoping, 48, director of the ministry's equipment and finance department; Guo Baoshan, 60, deputy director of the ministry's international cooperation department; and Wang Shulin, 58, and Li Xiaoming, 35, both researchers at the ministry.

The four peacekeepers were: Zhao Huayu, 38; Li Qin, 47; Zhong Jianqin, 35; and He Zhihong, 35.

They were all men except for He, the statement said.

Li, Zhong and He were all police officers in southwest China's Yunnan Province. Zhao worked for the ministry in Beijing.

A total of 142 Chinese police peacekeepers are deployed in Haiti.

A Chinese rescue team of more than 60 people left Beijing Wednesday evening along with 10 tons of food, equipment and medicines.

Yan Song, a rescuer at the site of UN building in Port-au-Prince, told Xinhua by satellite phone that they were moving near the floor where the eight officers were trapped.

"They were likely to be trapped on the fourth floor. We have reached the fifth floor," he said.

Due to the hot weather and lack of large machinery, the rescue work was very difficult. Rescuers have worked for more than 10 hours at the site, he said.

China has sent an experienced rescue team, some of whom had taken part in rescue mission after the tsunami in 2004.