A woman overcome by emotion after an aftershock hit the area is carried by a relative to the general hospital in Port-de-Paix, Haiti on Oct. 7, 2018.Dieu Nalio Chery / AP

PORT-DE-PAIX, Haiti — The death toll from a 5.9 earthquake that hit Haiti over the weekend rose to at least 15 people with 333 injured, according to updated figures released Monday by authorities, as rescue crews worked to help victims spooked by strong aftershocks.

Haiti’s civil protection agency said in a statement that it will soon deploy 70 soldiers to the Nord-Ouest and Artibonite provinces that were hardest hit, noting it already sent 14 soldiers along with nurses and doctors to the area over the weekend.

Thousands of people along Haiti’s north coast have dragged mattresses and chairs outside, fearing new aftershocks. Many wondered how they were going to rebuild from Saturday night’s quake and a strong 5.2 magnitude aftershock on Sunday that had residents in the coastal city of Port-de-Paix and elsewhere worried about returning to their cracked cinderblock homes for fear they would collapse.

Among them was Marc-Sena Docteur, a 24-year-old carpenter whose girlfriend died in the earthquake.

“Now I’m left with a 9-month-old baby with no aid at all,” he said. “I’m still crying. I don’t know what I’m going to do without her.”

The walls of the room that the couple had been renting for a year collapsed, and he and the baby have been sleeping outdoors since the quake.

Sunday’s aftershock caused panic on streets where emergency teams were providing relief to victims after cinderblock homes and rickety buildings toppled in several cities. The U.S. Geological Survey said the epicenter of the aftershock was located 9.8 miles (15.8 kilometers) north-northwest of Port-de-Paix.

Among the dead were a 5-year-old boy crushed by his collapsing house.

Impoverished Haiti, where many live in tenuous circumstances, is vulnerable to earthquakes and hurricanes. A vastly larger magnitude 7.1 quake damaged much of the capital in 2010 and killed an estimated 300,000 people.

Etanvie Dimorne, a 50-year-old mason, said people have to rebuild stronger given the earthquakes that have hit Haiti. He lost his home in Saturday’s quake and is now sleeping under a tarp in someone’s yard.

“Last night it rained,” he said. “I have to sleep under difficult conditions.”

President Jovenel Moise urged people to donate blood and asked international aid agencies to coordinate with local agencies to avoid duplicated efforts. The government did not provide an estimate of the damages.

The USGS said Saturday’s quake was centered 12 miles (19 kilometers) northwest of Port-de-Paix, which is about 136 miles (219 kilometers) from the capital of Port-au-Prince.

It was felt lightly in the capital, as well as in the neighboring Dominican Republic and in eastern Cuba, where no damage was reported.

In Haiti, officials have struggled to shore up buildings despite the two major fault lines along Hispaniola, which is the island shared with the Dominican Republic.

The damage from the temblors was visible. In Gros-Morne, one bed was covered in rubble, while the exterior walls of some homes were cracked. Others tilted at precarious angles.

Pierre Jacques Baudre, a farmer and father of seven, said he was afraid to return to his home after one wall built with rocks and cement crumbled.

“The house can fall at any time,” he said.

The civil protection agency issued a statement saying that houses were destroyed in Port-de-Paix, Gros-Morne, Chansolme and Turtle Island.

Damage was also reported at the Saint-Michel church in Plaisance and the police station in Port-de-Paix. Parts of a hospital and an auditorium collapsed in Gros-Morne, where parliamentarian Alcide Audne told The Associated Press that two of the deaths occurred.

Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/death-toll-haiti-earthquake-rises-15-least-333-injured-n917911

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The earthquake was first measured as a 7.5-magnitude and later lowered to having a 7.2-magnitude by the U.S. Geological Survey. The epicenter was found along the Pacific coast near Santiago Ixtayutla, a town in the state of Oaxaca in the southwestern area of the country.

There is no tsunami threat from the quake, according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. 

Videos on social media show people in the streets grabbing onto a car as the ground started shaking. Footage inside a building show lights swaying back and forth with people lined up along a hallway.

It’s unclear if any damage or injuries were reported.

Mexico is no stranger to earthquakes. The country dealt with two back-to-back quakes in September that left hundreds dead after buildings crumbled, including schools.

More than 90 people died after the first earthquake on Sept. 7, then days later on Sept. 19, another disaster struck in Central Mexico. Several hundred were left dead.

The second tragedy landed on the 32nd anniversary of the 1985 earthquake in Mexico City, which left an estimated 9,500 people dead.

Check back for updates on this breaking news story.

Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/02/16/mexico-struck-massive-7-5-magnitude-earthquake/347281002/

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The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was centered 13 miles north-northeast of Hualien, a city of more than 100,000 on Taiwan’s east coast. Photos and videos posted on social media show toppled and leaning high-rise buildings and badly damaged roads.

Multiple, strong aftershocks rattled the area, keeping residents and emergency officials on edge.

“Armed forces & government agencies are responding. Relief measures are underway. Stay safe,” Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen tweeted.

Taiwan’s CTI -TV reported at least five buildings collapsed in the city. The high-rise Marshal Hotel caved-in, and 116 people were evacuated from the 11-story building after the bottom three floors were crushed, firefighters told Taiwan’s state-owned Central News Agency.

The Hualien Shangxiao Road Community Apartment suffered severe damage and was tilted 45 degrees, the first and second floors almost completely crushed, Taiwan Newsreported. Rescue workers estimated the building contained more than 80 households.

Landslides triggered by the quake closed some vital highways.

Military spokesman Chen Chung-chi told CNA that 88 military members had been dispatched to aid the rescue missions, with 250 more expected to be sent soon.

The quake, at a depth of less than six miles, came two days after another strong temblor struck off Taiwan’s east coast. The earthquake could be felt across Taiwan, CNA reported.

Earthquakes are a fairly common occurrence in Taiwan, which sits on the boundary of two tectonic plates — the Philippine Sea Plate to the East and the Eurasian Plate.

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Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/02/06/damage-reported-after-magnitude-6-4-quake-rocks-taiwan/311031002/

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The U.S. Geological Survey said the magnitude-6.1 quake’s epicenter was 9 miles northeast of the city of Hualien, at a depth of just 4.9 miles. Shallow quakes tend to cause more damage than deeper ones.

Taiwan’s Central News Agency said the island’s earthquake monitoring agency registered seven tremors around that time, with the strongest recorded at a magnitude of 5.8 and a depth of 10 miles.

Earthquakes frequently rattle Taiwan, but most are minor and cause little or no damage. However, a magnitude-7.6 quake in central Taiwan in 1999 killed more than 2,300 people. In 2016, a shallow earthquake in southern Taiwan killed at least two dozen people.

Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/02/04/strong-earthquake-strikes-off-taiwan-coast/304765002/

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The quake struck at 1.15pm local time (7.15pm BST) and of the 217 people confirmed dead so far, half of them were in the capital, Mexico City.

Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto later confirmed 22 bodies had been recovered from a collapsed school in Mexico City where 48 people remain missing.

One woman, a 32-year-old mother, told reporters: “They keep pulling kids out, but we know nothing of my daughter.”

Mexican rescuers have been racing against the clock to save a 12-year-old girl trapped beneath a collapsed school.

David Porras, one of scores of volunteers helping the search at the school for children aged 3 to 14, said: “We have a lot of hope that some will still be rescued.”

The governor of the neighbouring state of Morelos said at least 42 people had been killed there.

However a number of people trapped in the school are believed to be alive with many texting their parents.

Five more people died in the State of Mexico, governor Alfredo Del Mazo told local TV.

Relief efforts have continued throughout the night as volunteer rescue teams, known as ‘moles’, crawled under the rubble to locate and rescue those trapped by falling debris.

Some Mexico City residents slept in the street while authorities and volunteers set up tented collection centers to distribute food and water.

Volunteers, soldiers and firefighters formed human chains and dug with hammers and picks to find dust-covered survivors and dead bodies in the remains of apartment buildings, schools and a factory.

Del Valle, a middle-class neighbourhood in the capital, was among those hit hardest by the quake and all but a few buildings on one street were reduced to rubble.

With power failures still affecting large swathes of the city, much of the rescue efforts were conducted in the dark with only torches and the odd generator providing power.

In Obrera, central Mexico City, people applauded when rescuers managed to retrieve four people alive, with cheers of “si se puede” – “yes we can” – ringing out.

Dozens of buildings have been reduced to rubble across the capital, including a number of historic points of interest, while broken gas mains have sparked fires in the city.

The US Geological Survey said the quake hit five miles southeast of Atencingo in the state of Puebla, about 100 miles south of Mexico City, at a depth of 32 miles.

The quake prompted a small eruption of Mexico’s Popocatepetl volcano, which is visible from Mexico City.

On its slopes a small church collapsed, killing 15 people.

Video has emerged showing a huge explosion over the city following the quake, the cause of which is not yet clear.

A large number of hospital patients have been photographed receiving treatment outside the facility for fear the building may collapse.

Dentist Claudia Meneses said she was in her clinic in Mexico City’s Lindavista neighbourhood when the earthquake struck.

“People are really scared right now,” she said.

“We’re going to go to a building that fell to see if we can help.”

Rescuers frantically worked to dig a young girl out from under the rubble of a partially collapsed school in Mexico City on Wednesday, offering a small glimmer of hope amid devastation from a major earthquake that killed at least 224 people.

Television network Televisa broadcast the nailbiting rescue attempt live after crews at the school in the south of the city reported finding the girl, seeing her move her hand and threading a hose through debris to get her water 24 hours after the quake.

The girl’s name was not made public. Rescuers moved slowly, erecting makeshift wooden scaffolding to prevent the remains of the teetering structure from crumbling. They implored bystanders to be quiet to better hear calls for help.

It was part of a search for dozens of victims feared buried beneath the Enrique Rebsamen school, where local officials reported 21 children and 4 adults dead after Tuesday’s quake. The school was one of hundreds of buildings destroyed by the country.

The quake was recorded at 1.15pm local time and comes days after the country was hit by an 8.1 magnitude tremor, the biggest to hit Mexico in a century, killing at least 98 people.

President Nieto was on a flight to Oaxaca, one of the hardest hit areas by that quake, but has since tweeted that he was immediately returning to attend to the quake in Mexico City.

Just two hours before the quake struck, people had been taking part in evacuation drills on the anniversary of one of Mexico’s deadliest earthquakes which struck in 1985.

Video footage shows a huge cloud of thick dust and smoke filling the streets as people try to make their way to safety.

One clip shows the side of a National Secretariat building crumbling as onlookers scream in horror.

In Puebla, where the U.S. Geological Survey said the epicenter lay some 100 miles (158 km) southwest of the capital, parts of colonial-era churches crumbled.

In the town of Atzala, a row of coffins lined the street outside a church where the roof collapsed, killing 11 worshipers inside.

Around the same time that the earth shook, Mexico’s Popocatepetl volcano, visible from the capital on a clear day, had a small eruption. On its slopes, a church in Atzitzihuacan collapsed during Mass, killing 15 people.

Seperate footage shows huge storm-like waves rocking gondoliers in Mexico city’s famous Xochimilco canals.

Adrian Wilson, a photographer from New York City, was in Mexico City when the quake hit.

He told CNN: “I was having lunch when the floor gently rocked as if a big truck went by.

US President Donald Trump and Mexican President Pena Nieto spoke at length today, according to the White House.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders gave no other details but said more information would come soon about the call. The two leaders also spoke last week.

“It then amplified in waves and the whole room started shaking.

“The building is from the 1930s and just survived a big earthquake, so I knew I would be OK.”

In Cuernavaca, a city south of Mexico City, there were unconfirmed reports on local radio of people trapped beneath collapsed buildings.

Mexican TV and social media showed cars crushed by debris.

Many people fled into the streets, and electricity and phone lines were down in parts of the capital.

“We got out really fast, leaving everything as it was and just left,” said Rosaura Suarez, as she stood with a crowd on the street.

The Mexican stock exchange has suspended trading following the quake.

Mexico airport has also suspended all operations.

US President Donald Trump said on Twitter: “God bless the people of Mexico City. We are with you and will be there for you.”

The city and its surrounding area are home to about 20 million people.

Fears that the quake could cause a tsunami in the Pacific ocean have been dismissed by officials from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, who said it was too far inland to generate such a wave.

It also comes on the 32nd anniversary of a 1985 quake which killed 5,000 people and caused serious damage to the Greater Mexico City area

Following the quake the Mexican government brought in sweeping changes to safety rules and disaster preparation.

Additional reporting by Matt Drake and Nicole Stinson.

Source: http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/856237/mexico-earthquake-city-2017-today-strikes-south-country

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