Haiti just got hit with a massive earthquake

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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/worl...cks_haiti.html

Another major tragedy hit star-crossed Haiti Tuesday when a massive earthquake smashed the capital, knocking down hospitals, high-rises, ministries, churches and part of the presidential palace.

Hundreds - maybe thousands - of dead and wounded people were believed buried under rubble.

"It's going to be a major catastrophe when we start to count the dead," said Haitian Ambassador Raymond Joseph.

Haitipal TV reported many of the downtown buildings had collapsed, including the parliament. The presidential palace was badly damaged, Joseph said.

He said he was told President René Préval was not hurt.

In the center of town, more buildings were down than standing, witnesses said.

"People were screaming 'Jesus, Jesus' and running in all directions," said Reuters reporter Joseph Guyler Delva. "It's total chaos."

A five-story apartment building was also said to have fallen down, with much loss of life.

The magnitude 7.3 quake hit near the capital Port-au-Prince, home to 2 million people, at 4:53 p.m.

Two powerful aftershocks measuring 5.9 and 5.5 on the Richter scale soon followed, further damaging structures weakened by the initial quake.

Haiti has been struggling to recover from a string of hurricanes that devastated the island in 2008, destroying the island's infrastructure and killing hundreds.

President Obama said the United States stood ready to help with the latest crisis.

"My thoughts and prayers go out to those who have been affected by this earthquake," he said.

The Red Cross pledged an initial $200,000 in aid. "We do have staff on the ground - we have not been able to reach them," said Red Cross spokesman Abbi Weaver.

Witnesses said the streets of the capital were full of panicked people, and screams were coming from under the piles of rubble seen everywhere.

People were clawing at the rubble with their bare hands, trying to save loved ones, witnesses said.

Power was out, radio was off-line and phone service was down. Haitians in New York City frantically trying to contact relatives back home were having little luck getting through.

There were reports the airport in Port-au-Prince was badly hit, which could hamper efforts to fly in aid.

Emergency meetings were being held at the State Department, which was having trouble contacting the Haitian government.

"We will be providing both civilian and military disaster relief," said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. "Our prayers are with the people who have suffered."

Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, who is the United Nations Special Envoy for Haiti, promised his office was "committed to do whatever we can to assist the people of Haiti."

In Petitionville, where a hospital fell down on top of screaming patients, a visiting U.S. Department of Agriculture official said he saw a number of homes collapsed into a ravine.

"The sky is just gray with dust," Henry Bahn told the Associated Press.

"I just hear a tremendous amount of noise and shouting and screaming in the distance."

Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Western Hemisphere subcommittee, urged the administration "to do everything possible to help."

"This is the worst possible time for a natural disaster in Haiti, a country which is still recovering from the devastating storms of just over a year ago," Engel said.

A government analyst it was the worst quake to ever hit Haiti, which was last hit by a major magnitude-6.7 temblor in 1984.

The poorest and most densely populated country in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti has been through untold misery in recent years.

The island was just begining to start showing the first signs of recovery from the relentless battering of hurricanes Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike.



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