"The resumption of flights was based on identifying locations where the injured could go to, where they wouldn't overwhelm the capacity of the states where they were being evacuated," Colonel Gregory Kane said outside the US embassy in Port-au-Prince.

The White House said a C-130J aircraft was scheduled to arrive in Haiti from a US air base in Tampa, Florida at 3:30 pm eastern time (2030 GMT) and would be back at 8:30 pm (0130 GMT).

Earlier, the White House said the United States was working "with the Haitian government and the international community to meet this urgent need and save lives."

The US military on Saturday said it had stopped medical evacuations of Haitians critically injured in the devastating January 12 earthquake that killed some 170,000 people, reportedly over a row over who would pay for their care.

Kane would not comment on the cost issue or the question of where the injured would be placed in the United States.

The US aircraft carrier Carl Vinson, one of the first relief ships to arrive in the area after the quake, was meanwhile released from its duties in Haiti Monday, after working as one of the first relief ships in the area following the earthquake, the Joint Task Force Haiti said in a statement.

Kane insisted the carrier's departure would "absolutely not" affect US relief operations in the country.

From its position anchored just offshore from the devastated Haitian capital, supply missions from the Vinson distributed "more than 1.1 million pounds of emergency humanitarian aid for earthquake survivors in Haiti," the task force said.

Over 400 Haitians injured in the earthquake have been treated by medical teams onboard the ship, Kane told AFP earlier, and there have been over 4,000 helicopter sorties -- dropping supplies and evacuating or transporting personnel -- between the Vinson and the mainland.

"A lot of (the carrier's) capacity has been eclipsed by other assets that have now moved into Haiti," Kane said in explaining the move.

"That's not to say they can't still contribute" to the relief effort, Kane added, noting that 10 of the Vinson's helicopters had been relocated to other naval ships and the US military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"From emergency medical care aboard ships, to medical evacuation missions, to the rapid delivery of urgently-needed supplies, (Vinson personnel) helped save countless lives in the most desperate of times," SouthCom Commander General Douglas Fraser said in a statement lauding the carrier's efforts.

Since the earthquake the US military has deployed 20,000 military personnel, 23 ships and more than 90 aircraft to Haiti to help deliver aid and emergency medical care to survivors of the quake, he said.

From Monday, however, the US officials said the number of ships supporting the effort had been reduced to 19 military and coast guard, but that seven additional US military and civilian ships were en route to the region.

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