A 4.9-magnitude earthquake struck the southwestern coast of Haiti about 9 km away on Tuesday morning, killing at least four people and injuring 36. The country was already in mourning for the severe weather conditions, which left half a hundred dead and almost twenty missing last weekend.
First modification:
On Tuesday June 6, an earthquake caused at least four deaths and injured 36 in western Haiti, Civil Protection announced, at a time when the country was already facing deadly floods.
In the city of Jérémie many houses were cracked, as observed by a photographer from the AFP news agency, while the few houses destroyed had clearly been built without respecting building regulations.
“I don’t know what to do,” said Katiana Pierre, a 19-year-old girl who lost her husband and younger sister in the disaster. Three of the deceased “are members of the same family and died when their house collapsed,” said Christine Monquélé, head of Civil Protection for the Grand’Anse department.
The quake, which registered a magnitude of 4.9 according to the United States Geophysical Survey (USGS), occurred shortly after 5 in the morning (0900 GMT) about 9 km off the coast of the southwestern peninsula of this country. Caribbean, regularly hit by destructive tremors.
Efforts Continue
“We have been able to administer first aid to the victims. Some patients have been airlifted to the capital. We have at least one patient in critical condition who is in intensive care,” said Soitmil Lorreus, head of the emergency department at the public hospital Saint -Antoine, who said he expected to receive more victims from remote areas.
Searches were conducted throughout the day to rescue possible injured trapped under the rubble. “Efforts to find survivors continue,” the Haitian Red Cross said. Most of the victims live in the Sainte Hélène neighborhood, a poor area of Jérémie.
“At dawn, I heard a deafening noise. My wife was startled and asked me to go look for the children in her room. With the help of the neighbors, I was able to save the two children, but unfortunately my wife died. The house It was completely destroyed. I have lost everything,” says a man in his forties in a hospital bed, in a video shared by the online media outlet ‘JCOM Haiti’.
food aid
“We are saddened by the loss of life, destruction and suffering of the Haitian people caused by the earthquake,” Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary General António Guterres, said in New York.
The southwestern peninsula of Haiti was already devastated in August 2021 by a powerful 7.2 magnitude earthquake that killed more than 2,200 people and destroyed more than 130,000 homes. In 2010, a magnitude 7 earthquake killed more than 200,000 people in the country. The tremor turned the capital, Port-au-Prince, into a field of rubble and left 1.5 million people homeless.
Strong storms also hit the country over the weekend, leaving at least 51 dead, 18 missing and 140 injured, according to a new report by Haitian authorities cited by the UN on Tuesday.
Stéphane Dujarric stated that the World Food Program was preparing to distribute some 350,000 meals and other food aid “to those most in need”. But “insecurity and damaged roads are hampering relief operations,” he stressed, as the country is ravaged by gang violence.
*With AFP; adapted from its original in French
