This institution issued a tsunami warning, anticipating possible waves of up to three meters along the coast of Haiti, but soon lifted it.
“Many houses are destroyed, there are dead and some are in hospital,” Christella Saint Hilaire, who lives near the epicenter, told AFP. “Everybody is out on the streets now and the aftershocks are still taking place.”
“There are deaths, I can confirm it, but I still don’t have the exact number,” said Jerry Chandler, director of the country’s civil protection agency.
The official said that Prime Minister Ariel Henry was on his way to the national emergency operations center in Port-au-Prince.
The long initial jolt was felt across much of the Caribbean, including Santiago de Cuba (about 300 km from Saint-Louis-du-Sud), where many residents left their homes, according to Radio Rebelde.
The quake damaged schools and homes in Haiti’s southwestern peninsula, according to eyewitness images.
One tragedy after another
Residents shared images on social media of the ruins of concrete buildings, including a church where a ceremony was apparently taking place on Saturday in the southwestern town of Les Anglais.
A magnitude 7 earthquake in January 2010 transformed much of Port-au-Prince and nearby cities into dusty ruins. It caused the death of more than 200,000 people and left another 300,000 injured.
More than 1.5 million Haitians were left homeless, leaving island authorities and the international humanitarian community with a colossal challenge in a country that lacks a land registry and building codes.
The earthquake destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes, as well as administrative buildings and schools, as well as 60% of Haiti’s health system.
The reconstruction of the country’s main hospital remains incomplete, and non-governmental organizations have made efforts to make up for the state’s many shortcomings.