A massive magnitude 7.2 earthquake hit Haiti early Saturday morning, leaving buildings crumbled, a hospital overcrowded and people rushing from their homes into the streets.
The death toll stood at 29 and teams will be sent to the area for search and rescue missions, Jerry Chandler, Haiti’s director of civil protection, told the Associated Press.
The quake has sparked comparisons to a devastating 2010 earthquake that killed an estimated 300,000 people, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
“High casualties are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” according to USGS. “Past events with this alert level have required a national or international level response.”
Saturday’s epicenter struck 7.5 miles from Saint-Louis du Sud, a small coastal town in western Haiti that is about 100 miles from Port-au-Prince, the Haiti’s capital.
“The damage should not be as bad as 2010, b/c that quake gave Intensity VII shaking to Port au Prince,” tweeted seismologist Lucy Jones. But intense shaking from the latest earthquake affected about 130,000 people so “losses will be high,” she warned.
Haiti’s new prime minister, Ariel Henry, said on Twitter he would mobilize all available government resources following the “violent quake” that had cause loss of life and damage in various parts of the country. He asked Haitians to unify to “confront this dramatic situation in which we’re living right now.”
The earthquake came as tropical Tropical Storm Grace raced toward…
