Thailand to fly 100 tons of rice to Haiti on February 1

Jan 23, 2010, 3:00 GMT

Bangkok - Thailand plans fly 100 tons of rice to earthquake-hit Haiti on February 1, with national carrier Thai Airways International providing a freighter plane, media reports and airline sources said Saturday.

The shipment is the first of 20,000 tons of rice pledged by the government to the disaster-struck Caribbean nation.

The aid shipment is to be transported on a Boeing cargo freighter aircraft on a 36-hour flight from Bangkok to the Dominican Republic via Alaska and Miami, THAI president Piyavasti Amranand said.

'Once THAI's humanitarian freighter flight lands at Santo Domingo Airport in the Dominican Republic, UN humanitarian assistance teams will dispatch donated goods to those in need of relief aid in Haiti,' he said.

The cost of the flight was estimated at 632,000 dollars.

Thailand, the world's largest rice exporter, plans to ship another 3,000 tons by sea to Haiti early next month, and decide later how to deliver the remaining 16,900 tons pledged.

The Thai government also agreed to donate 100,000 dollars to disaster relief efforts after being criticized for initially pledging only 20,000 dollars in aid immediately after the earthquake struck the island-state on January 12.