A strong earthquake shakes Haiti: 7.2 degrees and the tsunami warning is launched

An earthquake of magnitude 7.2 on the Richter scale shook Haiti in the morning of this Saturday, August 14 and there is a tsunami alert throughout this area, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported on Saturday. The results of the violent earthquake have not yet been defined, the authorities consulted limited themselves to stressing that “there are dead”, but without figures allowing to detail the damage caused by the earthquake. Religious buildings, schools and homes were damaged by the earthquake, according to residents of the affected area.

The shock was felt throughout Haiti and material damage was seen in the towns of Jérémie and Los Cayos, on the southwest peninsula of the island of Hispaniola, which Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic, according to the press agency. AFP. A few minutes later, the USGS sent an alert of tsunami, causing fear in the population which has been repeatedly affected by natural disasters.

The strong earthquake that shook Haiti Saturday morning is gone “several dead”, as indicated in AFP the country’s director of emergency preparedness, Jerry Chandler. “There are deaths, I can confirm it, but I still do not have the exact number”, Chandler said, adding that Prime Minister Ariel Henry was on his way to the national emergency operations center in Port-au-Prince.

The epicenter site is approximately 160 km by road from the center of Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital.

Indeed, Henry, in a message on his official Twitter account, called for “the spirit of solidarity and commitment of all Haitians” to face “this dramatic situation that we are currently living”, pending information official reports on the impact of the cities of Saint-Louis du Sud, Les Cayes and Jérémie.

The earthquake, which occurred at 8:30 am local (9.29 from Argentina), about 12 kilometers from the city of Saint-Louis du Sud and its hypocenter was 10 kilometers deep, according to the USGS report. The institute also issued a red alert due to the possibility that the earthquake killed a large number of people, the news agency said. Europe Press.

The location of the epicenter is approximately 160 km by road from the center of Port-au-Prince, the densely populated capital. The long earthquake was felt across the country and material damage has already been recorded in several towns, according to images of witnesses in the southwest of the island’s peninsula, posted on social media. In videos shared online, residents filmed the ruins of several concrete buildings, including a church where a ceremony was said to have taken place on Saturday morning in the commune of the English, 200 km southwest of Port-au-Prince.

On January 12, 2010, a magnitude 7 earthquake devastated the Haitian capital and several provincial towns. Over 200,000 people died and over 300,000 were injured in the disaster, which left 1.5 million people homeless.

A few minutes after the earthquake, a 5.2 magnitude aftershock was recorded 17 kilometers from the town of Chantal, still with a hypocenter 10 kilometers deep. According to the local Gazette Haiti portal, the earthquake was felt for several seconds in the Caribbean country’s capital, Port-au-Prince, which is about 130 kilometers from the epicenter.

AFP / HB