Quake kills 300

Epicenter about 78 miles from Port-au-Prince

Towns destroyed and hospitals overwhelmed with incoming patients after magnitude 7.2 temblor in Haiti./A4

A powerful magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck southwestern Haiti on Saturday, killing at least 304 people and injuring at least 1,800 others as buildings tumbled into rubble. Prime Minister Ariel Henry said he was rushing aid to areas where towns were destroyed and hospitals overwhelmed with incoming patients.

The epicenter of the quake was about 78 miles west of the capital of Port-au-Prince, the U.S. Geological Survey said, and widespread damage was reported in the hemisphere’s poorest nations as a tropical storm also bore down.

Haiti’s civil protection agency said on Twitter that the death toll stood at 304, most in the country’s

south. Rescue workers and bystanders were able to pull many people to safety from the rubble. The agency said injured people were still being delivered to hospitals.

Henry declared a onemonth state of emergency for the whole country and said he would not ask for international help until the extent of the damages was known. He said some towns were almost completely razed and the government had people in the coastal town of Les

Cayes to help plan and coordinate the response.

“The most important thing is to recover as many survivors as possible under the rubble,” said Henry. “We have learned that the local hospitals, in particular that of Les Cayes, are overwhelmed with wounded, fractured people.”

He said the International Red Cross and hospitals in unaffected areas were helping to care for the injured, and appealed to Haitians for unity.

“The needs are enormous. We must take care of the injured and fractured, but also provide food, aid, temporary shelter and psychological support,” he said.

Later, as he boarded a plane bound for Les Cayes, Henry said he wanted “structured solidarity” to ensure the response was coordinated to avoid the confusion that followed the devastating 2010 earthquake, when aid was slow to reach residents after as many as 300,000 were killed.

U.S. President Joe Biden authorized an immediate response and named USAID Administrator Samantha Power to coordinating the U.S aid effort.

Joseph Odelyn / Associated Press Oxiliene Morency cries out in grief after the body of her 7-year-old-daughter was recovered from the rubble of their home destroyed by the earthquake in Haiti on Saturday.

Duples Plymouth / Associated Press A woman stands in front of a destroyed home in the aftermath of an earthquake in Les Cayes, Haiti, Saturday.