Venezuelan gov't to assist family of plane crash victims
The local government of Venezuela's northwestern state of Zulia said Wednesday it will provide accommodation and psychological assistance to family members of the victims of Tuesday's air crash in the area.

"The government of Zulia has made arrangements to receive as of tomorrow family members of the victims. Three hundred will arrive from Martinica," Carlos Montiel, the regional chief of the Red Cross, told reporters.

The government will cover their expenses, Montiel said.

Fourteen family members of the crew had already arrived and the rest are expected to arrive in the next few hours, said Gloria Perez, a Colombian consul in Zulia's capital of Maracaibo.

Assistance to relatives will include psychological support, which will be provided in Maracaibo jointly by local authorities, the embassies of France and Colombia and the local Red Cross.

A US-made twin-engine plane from Colombian West Caribbean Airways (WCA) crashed Tuesday near Venezuela's border with Colombia with 152 passengers and eight crew members on board. It was on a flight from Panama to the French island of Martinique.

The cause of the accident is still under investigation. Expertsfrom Colombia, the United States, France and Panama have joined inthe investigation together with Venezuelan teams in order to speedup the identification process.