A strong earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 on the Richter scale shook Haiti on Tuesday, causing several buildings to collapse in the Western hemisphere's poorest nation and leading to an unknown number of fatalities, officials and witnesses said.
A tsunami warning has been issued for a number of nearby Carribean countries including Jamaica, the Bahamas and Cuba.
The earthquake was centered just 10 miles southwest of the crowded and impoverished capital of Port-au-Prince. Making matters worse, the earthquake was relatively shallow at a depth of five miles, the U.S. Geological Survey said. Shallow earthquakes can cause more damage.
Raphaelle Chenet, the administrator of Mercy and Sharing, a charity that takes care of 109 orphans, said she saw about ten dead bodies in the street after the quake struck.
In Port-au-Prince, many houses built on steep ravines have collapsed, Ms. Chenet said. She said from her house she had heard a couple of explosions, which she believed to be gas explosions. The orphans in the two institutions run by Mercy and Sharing weren't hurt, although an orphanage worker suffered a broken leg, she said.
President Obama reacts to Haiti's earthquake.“My thoughts and prayers go out to those who have been affected by this earthquake. We are closely monitoring the situation and we stand ready to assist the people of Haiti.”
An Associated Press videographer saw the collapsed wreckage of a hospital in Petionville, near Port-au-Prince. Reuters news agency cited a witness saying several buildings had crumbled in the capital and that there were dead and injured trapped in the rubble.
At least 1.8 million people live within the area where the earthquake had its highest intensity, John Bellini, a geophysicist at the USGS, told The Wall Street Journal.
Within minutes of the original tremor, two aftershocks rolled through the area, measuring 5.9 and 5.5 on the Richter scale.
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