A powerful 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck Haiti on Saturday, causing several deaths and toppling buildings in the disaster-plagued Caribbean nation still recovering from a devastating 2010 quake.
The epicentre of the quake, which shook homes and sent people scrambling for protection, was eight kilometres from the town of Petit Trou de Nippes, about 150km west of the capital Port-au-Prince, at a depth of 10km, the US Geological Survey said.
“Lots of homes are destroyed, people are dead and some are at the hospital,” Christella Saint Hilaire, who lives near the epicentre, told AFP. “Everyone is in the street now and the shocks keep coming.”
The long, initial shock was felt in much of the Caribbean. It damaged schools as well as homes on Haiti’s southwestern peninsula, according to images from witnesses.
“I can confirm there are deaths, but I don’t yet have an exact toll,” said Jerry Chandler, who heads the country’s civil protection agency.
Residents shared images on social media of the ruins of concrete buildings, including a church in which a ceremony was apparently underway on Saturday in the southwestern town of Les Anglais.
The USGS issued a tsunami warning, saying waves of up to three metres were possible along the coastline of Haiti, but it soon lifted the warning. Haitian media outlets reported that some people along the coast had already fled to the mountains.
The Civil Protection service said on Twitter there were initial reports of likely casualties from its teams.
Images posted on social media — which Reuters was not immediately able to verify — showed homes and part of a church in the nearby town of Jeremie reduced to rubble.
“In my neighbourhood, I heard people screaming. They were flying outside,” said Port-au-Prince resident Sephora Pierre Louis, adding she was still in a state of shock. “At least they know to go outside. In 2010, they didn’t know what to do. People are still outside in the street.”
The earthquake comes as Haiti is already mired in intertwined political, humanitarian and security crises.
The government is in turmoil, a month after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise, while swaths of the country are facing growing hunger and healthcare services are overwhelmed by Covid-19. Access to the southern region, where the quake struck, has been restricted by gang control of key areas.
“This country just never finds a break! Each year of mismanagement did not hurt but the cumulative effects made us vulnerable to everything,” said Haitian entrepreneur Marc Alain Boucicault on Twitter.
“Its going to take years to fix things and we have not even started!”
The quake was felt as far away as Cuba and Jamaica although there were no reports of material damage, deaths or injuries there.
“Everyone is really afraid. It’s been years since such a big earthquake,” said Daniel Ross, a resident in the eastern Cuban city of Guantanamo.
He said his home stood firm but the furniture shook.
“I feel it, man. It wake me up. My roof kind of make some noise,” said Danny Bailey, 49, in Kingston, Jamaica.
The magnitude-7.0 quake in January 2010 transformed much of Port-au-Prince and nearby cities into dusty ruins, killing more than 200,000 people and injuring some 300,000 others.
More than a million and a half Haitians were made homeless, leaving island authorities and the international humanitarian community with a colossal challenge in a country lacking either a land registry or building codes.
The 2010 quake destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes, as well as administrative buildings and schools, not to mention 60% of Haiti’s healthcare system.
The rebuilding of the country’s main hospital remains incomplete, and nongovernmental organisations have struggled to make up for the state’s many deficiencies.
Haiti’s political situation remains fragile a month after the assassination of Moise in his home by a team of gunmen.
Police say they have arrested 44 people in connection with the killing, including 12 Haitian police officers, 18 Colombians who were allegedly part of the commando team, and two Americans of Haitian descent.
The head of Moise’s security detail is among those detained in connection with the plot allegedly organised by a group of Haitians with foreign ties.
Police have issued wanted-persons notices for several other people, including a judge from Haiti’s highest court, a former senator and a businessman.
Moise had been ruling the impoverished and disaster-plagued nation by decree, as gang violence spiked and Covid spread.