'Several dead' after powerful 7.2-magnitude earthquake rocks Haiti

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.

"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.

A magnitude-7.0 quake in January 2010 transformed much of Port-au-Prince and nearby cities into dusty ruins, killing more than 200,000 and injuring some 300,000 others.

More than a million and a half Haitians were made homeless, leaving island authorities and the international humanitarian community with a colossal challenge in a country lacking either a land registry or building codes.

SOURCE: AFP