Earthquake in Haiti
Impoverished nation races to aid survivors as storm approaches
More than 300 dead as a magnitude 7.2 earthquake hits Haiti.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — A magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck southwestern Haiti on Saturday, killing at least 304 people and injuring 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 patients.
The epicenter of the quake was 78 miles west of the capital of Port-auPrince, the U.S. Geological Survey said, and widespread damage was reported as a tropical storm approached.
Haiti’s civil protection agency said most of the deaths occurred in the country’s south. Rescue workers and bystanders were able to pull many people to safety from the rubble, the agency said on Twitter.
Henry declared a one-month state of emergency for the 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,” Henry said. “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.
The impoverished country also was bracing for Tropical Storm Grace, which is expected to reach Haiti on Monday night or early Tuesday, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Grace was forecast to bring 3 to 6 inches of rain to the Leeward Islands, Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. The forecast has Grace approaching South Florida as a tropical storm by midweek.
The earthquake also struck just over a month after President Jovenel Moïse was killed, sending the country into political chaos.
His widow, Martine Moise, posted a message on Twitter calling for unity among Haitians: “Let’s put our shoulders together to bring solidarity. It is this connection that makes us strong and resilient. Courage. I am always by your side.”
Later Saturday, as Henry boarded a plane bound for Les Cayes, he 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 as the senior official coordinating the U.S effort to help Haiti. USAID will help to assess damage and assist in rebuilding, said Biden, who called the United States a “close and enduring friend to the people of Haiti.”
A growing number of countries offered help, including Argentina and Chile, which said it was preparing to send humanitarian aid.
“Once again, Haiti has been hit by adversity,” Chilean President Sebastian Pinera said.
Among those killed in the earthquake was Gabriel Fortune, a longtime lawmaker and former mayor of Les Cayes. He died along with several others when his hotel, Le Manguier, collapsed, the Haitian newspaper Le Nouvelliste reported.
Rescue efforts were hampered by a landslide triggered by the quake that blocked a major road connecting the hard-hit towns of Jeremie and Les Cayes, according to Haiti’s civil protection agency.
Humanitarian workers said gang activity in the seaside district of Martissant, just west of the Haitian capital, also was complicating relief efforts.
“Nobody can travel through the area,” Ndiaga Seck, a UNICEF spokesman in Port-au-Prince, said by phone. “We can only fly over or take another route.”
Seck said information about deaths and damage was slow coming to Portau-Prince because of spotty internet service, but UNICEF planned to send medical supplies to two hospitals in Les Cayes and Jeremie.
The reports of overwhelmed hospitals come as Haiti struggles with the pandemic and a lack of resources to deal with it. Just last month, the country of 11 million people received its first batch of U.S.-donated coronavirus vaccines.
Videos posted to social media showed collapsed buildings near the epicenter and people running into the streets.
Naomi Verneus, 34, of Port-au-Prince, said she was jolted awake by the earthquake.
“I woke up and didn’t have time to put my shoes on. We lived the 2010 earthquake and all I could do was run. I later remembered my two kids and my mother were still inside. My neighbor went in and told them to get out. We ran to the street,” Verneus said.
Paul Caruso, a geophysicist with the USGS, said aftershocks likely will continue for weeks or months, with the largest so far registering a magnitude 5.2.
The impoverished country was struck by a magnitude 5.9 earthquake in 2018 that killed more than a dozen people, and a vastly larger magnitude 7.1 quake that damaged much of the capital in 2010 and killed an estimated 300,000.