haiti presidential palace

A strong earthquake in the capital of Haiti, on Tuesday, with a destructive force, down from simple huts adorned National Palace and the UN headquarters of UN peacekeepers. The dead and wounded lying in the streets, even as strong aftershocks waves through the impoverished Caribbean country.

Associated Press reporter based in Port-au-Prince, because of the damage caused by the earthquake - the largest in Haiti, more than 200 years had to suffer - is stunning, even in a country accustomed to tragedy and disaster.

Women detect dust in the rubble weeping as others roamed the streets hand in hand. Thousands of people gathered in public places late at night, singing songs. Many people still Sat seriously injured on roads Wednesday morning, the means for physicians. Talk to almost any emergency and rescue survivors have few other options.

Thousands of buildings were damaged and destroyed throughout the city, and for hours after the earthquake, the air was filled with choking dust from the rubble of fallen buildings.

The magnitude of the disaster remain unclear, and even a rough estimate of the victims was impossible. But it was clear from a tour in the capital as tens of thousands of people lost their homes and many lost their lives. Many buildings in Haiti is poor and dangerous even under normal conditions.

A cameraman for Associated Press saw a destroyed hospital, where cries for help in Petionville, a hillside neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, home to many diplomats and many Haitians, including many poor people.

In a four-storey building collapsed, a young girl about 16 was standing in a car and tried to interior, and some men on a foot caught in an attempt to rid the body was transferred to the peer. She said her family was there.

Peacekeepers, most of which come from Brazil, who tried to rescue survivors of a collapsed five story headquarters, but the head of peacekeeping Alain Le Roy said Tuesday evening that  as we say, no one had survived.

We know that the victim, but we can not have details yet,  he said.

Many UN employees were missing, said head of mission for which Hedi Annabi, who was in the building when the earthquake. Expelled about 9,000 peacekeepers in Haiti since 2004, a revolt is the chairman.

Taiwan Foreign Ministry said the embassy was destroyed and the secret ambassador for injuries in hospital.

The National Palace Museum has collapsed in on itself, and the Haitian ambassador to Mexico, Robert Manuel, said President Ren茅 Pr茅val and his wife survived the earthquake.
He had no details.

The 7.0-magnitude earthquake at 4.53pm on Tuesday, the center 15 km west of Port-au-Prince, 8 kilometers in depth, said the US Geological Survey. USGS geophysicist Kristin Marano called the strongest earthquake since 1770 in what is now Haiti. In 1946, an earthquake measuring 8.1 also hit the Dominican Republic and Haiti, creating a tsunami that killed people in 1790.

The quake was strike slip fault, which slips one side of a vertical fault horizontally past each other,  said Tom Jordan earthquake expert at the University of Southern California. The magnitude of the earthquake and the proximity to populated Port-au-Prince, is probably caused by injuries and extensive structural damage,  he said.

Most of the 9 million people in Haiti, the poorest of the poor, and after years of political instability in the country real model for the construction. In November 2008, after the collapse of a school in Petionville, the mayor of Port-au-Prince, an estimated 60 percent of buildings have been built carefully and not dangerous in normal conditions.

Tuesday was an earthquake in the Dominican Republic, who felt a common border with Haiti the island of Hispaniola, actions, and some residents to panic in the capital, Santo Domingo, fled their homes shake. But no major damage was reported there. In eastern Cuba, shook their homes, but there are no reports of damage.

The devastation in Haiti, was evidently a large field.

Keyword State Department PJ Crowley, said in Washington that the staff of the Embassy of the United States was  lost  literally in the dark  after the operation.

The structures reported. They said many walls. He saw a number of bodies in the street and the sidewalk, which was hit by debris. So, clearly there will be a significant loss of life in this,  he said.

The Diocese of Norwich, Connecticut, said at least two Americans working for the relief operation in Haiti believed in ruins.

The United States has sent rescue teams to disaster and President Barack Obama said the United States was willing to help Haiti. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said from Honolulu, United States that full support - was politically and militarily.

Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela said that his government was considering creating a military plane with canned food, medicines and drinking water, and will involve a team of 50 employees of the rescue mission.

Mexico, which sent a devastating earthquake in 1985 that killed some 10,000 people were affected, a group of doctors, search and rescue experts and damage to infrastructure,  said Salvador Beltran, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs for Latin America and the Caribbean.