Spain is helping with the Haitian earthquake aid effort
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A Spanish military helicopter has crashed in rugged terrain in Haiti, the United Nations (UN) has said, killing all four crew members on board. The Bell AB-212 went down at 1030 local time (1430 GMT) on Friday. The crew of a helicopter sent to the area saw "enormous damage" at the crash site, a UN spokesman said. The crash happened in rough terrain 50km (30 miles) southeast of the capital, Port-au-Prince, near the border with the Dominican Republic. The helicopter was part of an independent Spanish detachment deployed in the country and was one of four based on the a Spanish navy amphibious ship, the Castilla. "They are here on a bilateral agreement, they are not part of Minustah (the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Haiti)," said UN spokesman George Ola-Davies. The cause of the crash is not yet known. Spanish forces are now on their way to the scene in the Fond Verrettes area. Spain has about 450 soldiers in Haiti helping with aid and reconstruction after the devastating earthquake on 12 January, that the Haitian government says killed about 230,000 people.
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