Haiti: An earthquake of 7 degrees in the Ritcher scale left the country devastated

Haiti was hit yesterday by an earthquake of seven degrees on the Richter scale, leaving the country in solitary confinement and also devastated.

The Caribbean country was devastated and was predicted a major disaster. At the moment the number of victims is unknown, as hundreds of them are under the rubble of destroyed buildings.

The airport of Puerto Príncipe, Haiti’s capital city, was closed and communications collapsed causing the isolation of many parts of the country. These are some of the major impacts that caused the earthquake, which started about fifteen kilometers from the Haitian capital, followed by three strong aftershocks.

The most affected buildings were the one of the United Nations and the presidential palace, where only a few walls remain, and the life of the president was also feared. It also destroyed supermarkets, hospitals and hotels.

The terrible phenomenon is more than disheartening, there is unknown the number of casualties and deaths that it left but you can see hundreds of them in the streets and under the rubble.

Telephone communications were cut due to the earthquake, which caused severe damage to them.

A witness told to the media that ‘when the earthquake occurred he was in Fond Parisien, a rural area near to Puerto Príncipe. A mine was destroyed, leaving persons trapped and also a hospital and a school collapsed.”

He added that “Everyone was screaming, you could see people getting out of their vehicles, running and shouting” and that “the road opened in half in front of him”.

The earthquake was felt throughout the island of ‘La Española’, an island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic, although in the latter country no dramatic damage was revealed. It was also felt in eastern Cuba.

The international community began to send help.

The first to send help was the president of the United States, Barack Obama, who has already sent a detachment composed of 72 people, 6 teams of tracking dogs and 48 tons of rescue equipment.

Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Spain also announced that they would send help to the disaster area. Haitians who are living abroad are trying to trace their families.

Gustavo, an Argentine policeman, who was in the building of the United Nations and was born in the province of Misiones, died due to the landslides that the earthquake caused. It left thousands of dead people under the rubble.