HAITI: The death toll from a 5.9 earthquake that hit Haiti over the weekend rose to 17 people with 333 injured, authorities said Monday, as thousands of people slept outdoors fearing aftershocks would topple their cracked homes.
After two days of searching for victims of the disaster, the country moved into a response phase Monday. The government faced two challenges: attending to the injured and managing fears.
A magnitude 5.2 aftershock on Sunday afternoon sent people rushing into the street in Port-de-Paix, the coastal town that bore the brunt of Saturday’s earthquake.
In 2010, a vastly larger magnitude 7.1 quake damaged much of the capital and killed an estimated 300,000 people.
The USGS says the aftershock’s epicenter was located 15.8 kilometers (9.8 miles) north-northwest of Port-de-Paix, and had a depth of 10 kilometers. It struck at about 3 p.m. local time on Sunday.
“It was an aftershock. It was at the same location,” said Paul Caruso, a geophysicist with the USGS. “This is the first significant aftershock”.
Haiti’s government ordered the police to interdict any aid convoys that do not have permission from the Office of Civil Protection to deliver aid.
Cuba’s Medical Brigade in Haiti, which currently numbers around 600 doctors, nurses and medical technicians across 10 departments, has been active in the country for the past 20 years.
President Jovenel Moise urged people to donate blood and asked international aid agencies to coordinate with local agencies to avoid duplicated efforts.
