The death toll from a powerful magnitude 7.2 earthquake in Haiti has climbed sharply, with at least 724 dead and a minimum of 2,800 injured.
The updated figures from Haiti’s office of civil protection follow a previous count of 304 dead. The office’s director, Jerry Chandler, said rescuers were continuing to search for possible survivors under the rubble.
People in the Caribbean nation rushed into the streets to seek safety and to help rescue those trapped in the rubble of collapsed homes, hotels and other structures.
Saturday’s earthquake struck the south-western part of the poor nation, almost razing some towns and triggering landslides that hampered rescue efforts in two of the hardest-hit communities.
The disaster added to the plight of Haitians who were already grappling with the coronavirus pandemic, a presidential assassination and a wave of gang violence.In a news conference on Sunday evening, the head of the country’s civil protection agency, Jerry Chandler, said 724 people had been confirmed dead – up from an initial toll of 29 – while at least 2,800 others were injured.
Chandler told reporters 360 of the deaths were reported in Haiti’s southern department; 142 were in Nippes; 202 were in Grand Anse, and twenty were in the country’s northwest.
“The first interventions, carried out both by professional rescuers and members of the population, made it possible to extract several people from the rubble. Hospitals continue to receive the wounded,” the agency also said on Twitter.
The earthquake struck on Saturday morning 12km (7.4 miles) northeast of Saint-Louis du Sud, on Haiti’s southern Tiburon Peninsula, at a shallow depth of 10km (6.2 miles), the United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported.
It is the latest crisis to befall the Caribbean nation, which is struggling amid widespread gang violence and ongoing political instability in the aftermath of the assassination of President Jovenel Moise last month.“I saw bodies being pulled out of the rubble, injured and perhaps dead people,” said Les Cayes resident Jean Marie Simon, 38, who was at the market when the earthquake struck and ran home to see if his family was safe. “I heard cries of pain everywhere I passed through.”
Haiti’s new prime minister, Ariel Henry, declared a one-month state of emergency after what he described on Twitter as a “violent quake” and said he would mobilise all available government resources to help victims.
“We will make the necessary arrangements to assist those affected by the earthquake,” Henry tweeted. “The government will declare a state of emergency. We will act quickly.”
The European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) also reported a quake in the region, saying it was recorded a magnitude of 7.6, while Cuba’s seismological centre said it registered a magnitude of 7.4.
The USGS issued a tsunami warning, saying waves of up to 3 metres (nearly 10 feet) were possible along the coastline of Haiti, but it soon lifted the warning. Shocks were felt throughout Haiti and in neighbouring Caribbean countries.
“Lots of homes are destroyed, people are dead and some are at the hospital,” Christella Saint Hilaire, who lives near the epicentre, told the AFP news agency.Residents shared images on social media of frantic efforts to pull people from the ruins of caved-in buildings while screaming bystanders sought safety in the streets outside their homes. “Houses and their surrounding walls have collapsed. The roof of the cathedral has fallen down,” resident Job Joseph told AFP from the hard-hit city of Jeremie on Haiti’s far western end.
Crises undermine disaster response
Haiti, an impoverished country, is vulnerable to earthquakes and hurricanes.
In 2018, it was struck by a magnitude 5.9 earthquake that killed more than 12 people, and a magnitude 7.1 quake damaged much of the capital in 2010 and killed an estimated 200,000 people“Today brings back the trauma of the 2010 earthquake that tore Haiti apart. This deadly quake has destroyed homes and infrastructure in some of Haiti’s most vulnerable and marginalised communities,” Angeline Annesteus, country director of ActionAid Haiti, said in a statement.
“Women and girls are already bearing the brunt of the multiple crises facing Haiti, including rising hunger, political instability and gang violence. The devastating fallout from this earthquake could push many more families into poverty and hunger,” Annesteus said.
The earthquake on Saturday struck more than a month after Moise was killed by a crew of mercenaries at his home in the capital, Port-au-Prince, sending a country already battling poverty, spiralling gang violence and COVID-19 into political chaos.
Jeremy Dupin, a journalist and filmmaker based in Port-au-Prince, told Al Jazeera that Haiti’s existing problems will severely undermine the response to the disaster.
“The epicentre is four hours’ drive away [from Port-au-Prince] and it is going to take a lot of time for support to arrive,” Dupin said. “Communications in some places are paralysed, and there are very limited electricity services in [the affected areas] right now,” he added.