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UPDATE: Rescue teams providing relief following earthquake in Haiti

Published:Sunday | October 7, 2018 | 12:00 AM

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, CMC – Rescue teams in Haiti are now working to provide relief in the aftermath of the 5.9 magnitude earthquake that rocked sections of the country late yesterday.

Haiti President Jovenel Moise today said civil protection brigades were working to clear debris and help victims. He also said the government had sent water and food.

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

According Secretary of State for Communications Eddy Jackson Alexis, a preliminary report indicated that 11 people had died and 135 injured.

It’s reported that seven people died in the coastal city of Port-de-Paix and three people died in the community of Gros-Morne in the province of Artibonite.

The injured are being treated at medical centres in the northern part of the country.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake hit at 8:11 p.m. yesterday(local time) and was centred 12 miles  northwest of Port-de-Paix, which is about 136 miles from the capital.

The quake was 7.3 miles below the surface.

The tremor was also felt in the neighbouring Dominican Republic and in eastern Cuba.

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

In 2010, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 killed an estimated 160,000 people and left more than a million others homeless in the French-speaking country.