Haiti: magnitude 7.2 earthquake kills several

A magnitude 7.2 earthquake rocked Haiti on Saturday morning, August 14, around 8:30 a.m. local time (2:30 p.m. Paris time), according to the American Center for Seismology (USGS). A tsunami warning was issued shortly afters, before being quickly lifted.

The toll was difficult to establish after the disaster, but the country’s director of emergency preparedness Jerry Chandler said several people had died. “But I do not yet have the precise assessment”, he told Agence France-Presse (AFP). Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who is en route to the national emergency operations center in Port-au-Prince, is expected to speak at a press conference, he added.

Several collapsed buildings

The earthquake occurred 12 km from the city of Saint-Louis-du-Sud, over 160 km southwest of the capital, Port-au-Prince, but the long shaking was felt over the whole country. Material damage has already been recorded in several cities, according to images produced by witnesses in the southwestern peninsula of the island, published on social networks. Religious buildings, schools and homes were damaged in the earthquake, according to residents of the affected area.

The general hospital in Les Cayes is overwhelmed. Lots of injured. Many houses have collapsed in Les Cayes. Don … https://t.co/PkagPqTpzc

– Frantzduval (@Frantz Duval)

The poorest country in the Americas still remembers the earthquake of January 12, 2010, which devastated the capital and several provincial towns. Over 200,000 people were killed, and over 300,000 others were injured in the disaster. More than a million and a half Haitians were then left homeless, placing the authorities and the international humanitarian community before the colossal challenge of reconstruction in a country without land registry or building rules.

Without succeeding in meeting this reconstruction challengeHaiti, which is also regularly hit by hurricanes, has in ten years plunged into an acute socio-political crisis.