Family and friends are desperately searching for an Ottawa engineer who remains missing in Haiti almost three days after a massive earthquake rocked the nation, killing thousands.

Katie Hadley, 30, was staying at the Montana Hotel in Port-au-Prince, which was flattened by the 7.0-magnitude earthquake.

Hadley, who is from the Prescott area, arrived in Port-au-Prince on Tuesday. She checked in to her hotel that afternoon and sent an email to her employer less than an hour before the earthquake hit, letting them know she arrived safely. She was due back in Canada today.

"We didn't hear anything further from her after that," said colleague Chris Ludwig.

Family and friends are frantically trying to get in contact with Hadley, calling her cellphone and posting appeals on social networking sites. Immediately after hearing news of the earthquake, Ludwig started calling her cellphone.

"It just kept ringing," he told CTV Ottawa.

Ludwig describes Hadley as an active and energetic person with incredible survivor skills, who loves to bike and swim laps at the local swimming pool. She moved to Ottawa after high school to study engineering and has been living in the capital ever since.

"Katie is very athletic, very determined, strong-willed, and if anyone can ride out something like this, it would be her," said Ludwig.

"We're optimistic that she'll get through it."

Family struggles to cope

Hadley works for Franz Environmental and was in Haiti to conduct an environmental assessment for a government agency.

"She was just going to be down for two or three days just to do an assessment of the mission down there," said Ludwig.

He said the work was nothing out of the ordinary: "This is pretty routine work and she's been to some pretty remote locations. She's been to the Middle East and down to Argentina and over to Europe."

Ludwig said he's been in touch regularly with Hadley's family, who continue to struggle to deal with the unknown.

"We were talking to her mom a number of times a day, keeping her updated as to any information we had," said Ludwig. Hadley's family has asked not to be contacted by the media.

Missing residents

Hadley is among 1,415 Canadians who remain missing in Haiti. Among them are at least two others from Ottawa.

Ottawa-based RCMP officer Supt. Doug Coates is still unaccounted for in Haiti. He had been stationed in Port-au-Prince as part of a United Nations training mission.

The body of fellow RCMP officer Sgt. Mark Gallagher, of New Brunswick, was found in the rubble of his Haitian home on Thursday. He is the first Canadian police officer to be killed on active duty in an international peacekeeping operation.

An Ottawa man working as a consultant for a joint project between the Haitian and Canadian governments is also missing.

Jennifer Jackson, 19, told CTV Ottawa her family has not heard from her father Robert Jackson, 57, since the earthquake hit.

By the numbers:

  • Foreign Affairs reports 1,415 Canadians remain missing.
  • So far, 550 Canadians have been located.
  • 50 Canadians are currently at the embassy compound.
  • 50 are outside the capital and safe.
  • 272 had returned to Canada by Friday morning. Of those, 13 are injured.
  • 800 Canadian troops are said to be on standby for peacekeeping efforts in the region, if needed.

With files from The Canadian Press