Japan will send an emergency medical team to quake-hit Haiti, Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada said Friday.
The team will consist of some 20 members, including Foreign Ministry and Japan International Cooperation Agency officials, who will leave Narita airport Saturday for Haiti via Miami.
They will likely leave Miami as early as Sunday and head to Haiti by an Air Self-Defense Force C-130H transport plane, which is now in the United States following airlift training, he added.
Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa said the government airlift of relief goods by the ASDF aircraft is being mulled.
He ordered the ASDF to prepare for its dispatch.
ASDF Chief of Staff Gen. Kenichiro Hokazono told a press conference that 24 crew members of the transport plane are now waiting for a government order in California at Travis Air Force Base.
JICA has stocked relief supplies in Miami. The aid agency has said it is ready to provide emergency relief goods worth ¥30 million to Haiti. Hokazono said the ASDF will probably airlift those supplies to Haiti.
