Port Au Prince, Haiti — A powerful earthquake bearing a magnitude of 7.0 struck Haiti at 4:53 p.m.,Tuesday. The quake toppled everything from shacks to hospitals and the National Palace. The dead and the injured lay in the streets while thousands more remain burried under rubble and debris. An associated Press journalist based in Port Au Prince said the damage is staggering even in a country accustomed to tragedy and disaster.
According to the US geological survey, the quake was centered about 10 miles (15 km) west of Port Au Prince at a depth of 5 miles (8 km). The temblor appeared to have occured along a strike-slip fault, where one side of a vertical fault slips horizontally past the other.
Haiti’s President Rene Preval and his wife survived the earthquake.
It is the strongest earthquake Haiti has experienced in more than 200 years.
