Canada's federal government says 1,415 Canadians are believed to be missing in the earthquake-struck Caribbean nation of Haiti, including a former MP who had been mistakenly reported as rescued.

The confirmed Canadian death toll remains at four, with 13 others injured, says the Department of Foreign Affairs.

• If you have missing family members in Haiti, please email us with photos and any information about them.

Former Liberal MP Serge Marcil remains missing, despite reports that he had been found Thursday.

Quebec Premier Jean Charest had announced Thursday that Marcil was transported to Miami for medical treatment and was not badly injured.

Charest said Friday that United Nations rescuers had mistakenly informed the family they had found Marcil, whose son Olivier works in Charest's office.

Marcil's relieved wife Christiane Pelchat had already travelled to Florida to reunite with her husband. She only learned of the heartbreaking mistake once she got to the hospital.

"When she arrived she saw that he wasn't there," said Beatrice Farand, a spokeswoman for Pelchat. "She's shattered."

Farand said Pelchat is going to remain in Miami, clinging to hope that her husband will be found alive.

His family was preparing to celebrate Marcil's 66th birthday, which is on Wednesday.

The news came hours after the first group of Canadians arrived at Montreal's Trudeau Airport early Friday morning after escaping the disaster wreaked by a magnitude-7.0 earthquake that struck near the capital of Port-au-Prince on Tuesday.

Ottawa said 550 Canadians have been located so far. The military had flown out 272 Canadians as of Thursday morning. Meanwhile, 50 Canadians have taken refuge at the Canadian embassy in Haiti and another 50 are located outside the capital.

Nearly 150 Canadian military personnel have arrived in Haiti to help with disaster relief efforts, and more are on the way.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay said the Canadian Forces have transported rescue gear, humanitarian supplies, RCMP and military police. Four more flights are scheduled for Friday, "depending on air traffic at the Port-au-Prince airport," he said.

"The Canadian Forces have made good progress in establishing a footprint for staging search and rescue operations, relief efforts and aid delivery," MacKay said.

Trouble getting to Port-Au-Prince

CTV's Robert Fife reported that Canadians in rural areas who survived the earthquake are being told to go to the embassy in the capital for help.

But infrastructure is damaged, and many cannot make the trip.

A humanitarian Christian group from Nelson, B.C., which includes 17 high school students, are stuck in Grand Goave, about 50 kilometres west of Port-au-Prince.

They are reportedly running out of food and water, and say looting has already begun in the area.

The group sent an email back to B.C. on Friday, which also revealed that one of the chaperones had been injured.

Kootenay Lake School District Superintendent Patricia Dooley said her team has been appealing to Ottawa for help in evacuating the group.

"The situation is getting more tenuous each day," she told ctvbc.ca. "We absolutely view this as a crisis situation."

Fife reported that people in Canada who are having trouble reaching loved ones can call the Department of Foreign Affairs at 1-800-387-3124.

Callers should provide addresses. The information will be given to people on the ground in Haiti who will go look for the missing.

Coming home

Meanwhile, about 100 people, 60 of them children, were flown in a Hercules military aircraft - the same one that took Canadian soldiers into Port-au-Prince on Thursday. Soon after, a second plane, a C-17 carrying about 50 more people, landed in Montreal. A third aircraft arrived later in the morning.

Anxious relatives and politicians were on hand to welcome home the evacuees, many of whom were wrapped in Red Cross or grey military blankets, some with dried blood still caked on their faces. Some had to be pushed through the airport terminal in wheelchairs.

But reunions with family members had to wait, as the evacuees were packed aboard airport buses and ferried to a nearby hotel to meet with their relatives.

Medical crews were standing by to take the wounded to a specially prepared area of the Wyndham Montreal Airport Hotel. Priority in the repatriation effort was given to women, children, and the injured.

"Thank you," said one of the first men on the ground. "Thank you for bringing us home."

"I haven't slept in three days," another survivor said. "It was hell."

Normand Lemay was among 60 missionaries caught in Haiti during the disaster. He said the hotel he was staying in seemed to sway more than a metre side to side, but didn't collapse.

"What we see now on TV and on the radio... It's very hard to listen to," he told CTV's Power Play on Friday afternoon. "(Haitians) are such nice people. And they are used to fighting every day just to survive."

Survivor Marilyn Raymer told CTV Toronto that she and her colleagues were sitting next to a pool at their house when the floor heaved.

"The pool looked like it was going to jump out, the walls started to fall down, debris was flying. We were thrown around," she said.

Raymer's colleague, Ontario nurse Yvonne Martin, was the first Canadian to be confirmed dead.

The earthquake hit just as she had gone inside to change clothes before dinner.

Her colleagues say that Martin was dedicated to helping others and would have returned to Haiti if she survived the quake.

"If Yvonne was still alive and I was going back in one month, or six weeks....she'd be the first on board to say I'll get together some team members, we'll raise some more funds and we will go," said survivor Marilyn McIlroy.

Three other Canadians have also been confirmed dead: a Nova Scotia RCMP officer and a couple from Montreal.

Lisa Gallagher, the wife of RCMP Sgt. Mak Gallagher said Thursday that he died doing work he loved.

Gallagher had been mentoring local police officers in Haiti.

With her son and daughter at her side, Lisa Gallagher told reporters her husband was "kindness personified."

She thanked people for their support in the days leading up to the news Thursday night that he had been found in the rubble of his apartment complex in Port-au-Prince.

Their son, Shane Gallagher, said he would always be proud of how caring the 50-year-old officer was.

Kent said a number of the evacuees left behind friends and colleagues who were killed in the earthquake.

"Of course the first priority now is for the living," Kent said, "but we remain fully committed to returning the dead to Canada just as soon as time and flight capacity allow."