Global Courant
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 4.9 struck southern Haiti on Tuesday, killing at least three people and injuring several others, authorities said.
The quake occurred before dawn near the southwestern coastal town of Jeremie at a depth of 10 kilometers, according to the US Geological Survey.
“I thought the whole house was going to fall on me,” Eric Mpitabakana, a World Food Program official in Jeremie, told The Associated Press by phone.
The three dead were found under a collapsed house where rescuers searched for more people, Frankel Maginaire of Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency in Jeremie told the AP.
He said several children have been hospitalized with injuries sustained after running away in a panic.
A crowd of people gathered around a house that collapsed as they tried to search for survivors in the rubble. They executed at least one victim wrapped in a sheet.
Mpitabakana said things were falling around his home and that he and other colleagues are considering sleeping outside if there are strong aftershocks.
“There were so many people in the streets and there was a lot of panic,” he recalled moments after the earthquake hit.
Claude Prepetit, a geologist and engineer with Haiti’s Bureau of Mines and Energy, told Radio Caraibes that smaller earthquakes that struck southern Haiti earlier this year led to the larger quake that struck Tuesday.
The quake struck nearly two years after a magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck southern Haiti and killed more than 2,200 people, with Les Cayes sustaining the most damage. Some of the people who lost their homes last August are still living in camps.
Paul Pierre, a driver for a nongovernmental organization in Jeremie, told the AP in a phone interview that he barely woke up when he felt the house rock.
“Everyone was running out with their kids, their babies,” he said. “Houses have collapsed.”
Pierre said he remained calm and sought shelter until the Earth stopped moving, adding that he is used to earthquakes.
In 2010, a magnitude 7 earthquake near the densely populated capital Port-au-Prince killed at least 200,000 people and caused widespread destruction of buildings.
Tuesday’s quake comes as Haiti struggles to recover from heavy flooding over the weekend that killed at least 51 people, injured 140 and flooded nearly 31,600 homes. Prime Minister Ariel Henry has asked for international help.
