Officials in Haiti have confirmed at least 1,297 people are dead after a powerful 7.2-magnitude earthquake hit the Caribbean nation on Saturday. It destroyed completely more than 13,000 buildings and damaged more than 13,700, trapping hundreds under rubble and leaving more than 5,700 people injured, the country’s civil protection agency said in an update. Homes, churches and schools were among buildings flattened in the quake. Some hospitals were left overwhelmed and in dire need of medical supplies. More than 1.5 million Haitans were rendered homeless in that disaster, which also destroyed 60 percent of Haiti’s healthcare system, leaving authorities and the international humanitarian community with a colossal challenge. Prime Minister Ariel Henry was quoted saying “when it comes to medical needs, this is our biggest urgency. We have started to send medications and medical personnel to the facilities that are affected.” “For the people who need urgent special care, we have evacuated a certain number of them, and we will evacuate some more today and tomorrow.” Henry urged Haitans to band together in solidarity.
He offered his sympathies to the relatives of the victims of the violent earthquake which caused several losses of human lives and property in several geographical departments of the country.
The United States and other nations have pledged to assist Haiti cope with this latest disaster.
Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman spoke with Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry on Sunday and said the United States was “already putting resources in place” to bolster the country’s emergency response, spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.
The disaster compounds problems facing the impoverished nation, which is already reeling from a political crisis following the assassination of its president last month.
“We’re concerned that this earthquake is just one more crisis on top of what the country is already facing, including the worsening political stalemate after the president’s assassination, Covid and food insecurity,” Jean-Wickens Merone, a spokesman with World Vision Haiti, said in a statement.
Merone, the World Vision Haiti spokesman, said he was in Port-au-Prince, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) from Saint-Louis-du-Sud, during the earthquake. He said the shaking there lasted "more than five to ten seconds," and both sides of his house were shaking.
A 5.2-magnitude aftershock hit later Saturday morning about 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) west-northwest of Cavaillon, Haiti, according to the USGS. That was followed by several more, including a 5.1-magnitude aftershock at about noon.
One hospital in the southern city of Jeremie said it is overwhelmed with patients and has set up tents in its courtyard.
