Three killed, several hurt as 4.9 magnitude earthquake hits Haiti

An earthquake struck southern Haiti with an initial magnitude of 4.9 early Tuesday, killing at least three people and leaving several others injured.

The US Geological Survey reported that a seism with a depth of 6 miles (10 kilometres) struck before dawn near the southwestern coastal city of Jeremie.

“I thought the whole house was going to fall on top of me,” Eric Mpitabakana, a World Food Programme official in Jeremie, said.

The rescuers at the scene discovered the three people who died under a collapsed house while searching for more people, said Frankel Maginaire from Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency in Jeremie.

According to him, some kids had to be treated in hospitals for wounds they sustained while running in a panic.

According to Mpitabakana, things have fallen around his house, and he and his coworkers are thinking about sleeping outside if there are powerful aftershocks.

“There were so many people out on the street and a lot of panic,” he recalled.

Claude Prepetit, a geologist and engineer with Haiti's Bureau of Mines and Energy, told Radio Caraibes that the region had recently experienced smaller earthquakes that led to the bigger one that struck Tuesday.

The earthquake struck two years after a 7.2-magnitude earthquake killed more than 2,200 people, leaving some living in camps, ABC News reported.

Furthermore, in 2010, a magnitude-7 quake near the densely populated capital, Port-au-Prince, killed at least 200,000 people and caused widespread devastation to buildings, the report said.

Haiti is struggling to recover from heavy floods that have killed dozens of people, prompting Prime Minister Ariel Henry to request international assistance.