Deadly Haiti earthquake kills at least 12 and injures scores as aftershocks continue

(Miami Herald) Haitian officials on Sunday said at least 12 people died and 188 were injured in a 5.9-magnitude earthquake that rocked the northern portion of the island Saturday, leaving a swath of damaged and destroyed buildings and a fearful population.

The quake and three aftershocks, including one 5.2-magnitude aftershock on Sunday afternoon, are what seismic experts consider to be “small to moderate.”

And while the death toll, concentrated in the northwestern port city of Port-de-Paix, remained a tiny fraction of the more than 300,000 who died in Haiti’s 2010 earthquake, experts said it underscores their warnings about how vulnerable Haiti remains to seismic activity and the devastation a larger quake will most likely have.

“There exists the possibility to have an earthquake up to a magnitude of 8,” said Claude Prépetit, Haiti’s top earthquake expert who heads the country’s Bureau of Mines and Energy.

Prépetit, a geological engineer,said the only reason there weren’t more deaths and destruction is because the quake was a 5.9 on the Richter scale. But the deaths and damage to buildings even with a 5.9 quake, he said, show “Haiti’s vulnerability, and the situation of the buildings isn’t good at all.”

“If it was a 7, it would have been 40 times stronger than what we saw yesterday or if it was an 8, 900 times stronger,” Prépetit told the Miami Herald in an interview from Port-au-Prince where tremors were also felt. “It would have been considerable, even more catastrophic than January 12. The risk in Haiti exists for the greater northern region..”

Read more at: Miami Herald