A 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck Haiti on Saturday, the United States Geological Survey said, prompting a tsunami warning and damage to buildings in the west of the beleaguered Caribbean nation.
The epicenter of the earthquake was about 100 miles (160 kilometers) by road from central Port-au-Prince, the densely populated capital.
According to eyewitness images, the quake-damaged schools as well as homes on Haiti’s southwestern peninsula.
Residents shared photos of the ruins of concrete buildings on social media, including a church in which a ceremony was underway Saturday in the southwestern city of Los Angles.
The USGS said waves of up to three meters (about 10 feet) are possible off the coast of Haiti.
“I can confirm there have been deaths, but I don’t have an exact toll yet,” Haiti’s civil defense director Jerry Chandler told AFP. “We are still collecting information.”
He said country’s Emergency Operations Center had been activated, and Prime Minister Ariel Henry is going there.
In January 2010, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake reduced Port-au-Prince and surrounding cities to dusty ruins, killing more than 200,000 people and injuring some 300,000 others.
More than half a million Haitians were left homeless, posing a huge challenge to island authorities and the international humanitarian community in a country that lacked a land registry or building code.