A major earthquake struck western Haiti on Saturday and was felt across the Caribbean where people fled their homes for fear that buildings might collapse.
The epicenter of the quake, which shook homes and sent people scrambling for protection, was about 100 miles (160 kilometers) by road from the center of the densely populated capital Port-au-Prince.
The magnitude 7 earthquake quake struck 8 km (5 miles) from the town of Petit Trou de Nippes, about 150 km west of the capital Port-au-Prince, at a depth of 10 km, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
“Lots of homes are destroyed, people are dead and some are at the hospital,” Christella Saint Hilaire, who lives near the epicenter, told AFP. “Everyone is in the street now and the shocks keep coming.”
The long, initial shock was felt in much of the Caribbean. It damaged schools as well as homes on Haiti’s southwestern peninsula, according to images from witnesses.
“I can confirm there are deaths, but I don’t yet have an exact toll,” said Jerry Chandler, who heads the country’s civil protection agency.
Residents shared images on social media of the ruins of concrete buildings, including a church in which a ceremony was apparently underway on Saturday in the southwestern town of Les Anglais.
The USGS issued a tsunami warning, saying waves of up to three meters (nearly 10 feet) were possible along the coastline of Haiti, but it soon lifted the warning.
The country is still recovering from a magnitude 7 earthquake closer to the capital 11 years ago that killed tens if not hundreds of thousands of people and flattened swathes of buildings, leaving many homeless.
“Everyone is really afraid. It’s been years since such a big earthquake,” said Daniel Ross, a resident in the eastern Cuban city of Guantanamo, adding that his home stood firm but the furniture shook.
The U.S. Tsunami Warning System said there was no tsunami warning after the quake.
