Environment
3.2 Earthquake Felt in Port-au-Prince, Dozens Injured in Panic
- Friday, June 24, 2011 6:25 PM
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - More than 20 people were injured during a panic caused by an earthquake felt in the capital city of Port-au-Prince and surrounding suburbs of Carrefour.
The magnitude 3.2 earthquake with its epicenter in Leogâne, was felt across different neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince and prompted many people to evacuate their offices and homes in panic.
Numerous cases were reported that in government offices, private companies and NGOs, employees, themselves, jumped from balconies, fearing the worst.
A dozen students from the National Institute of Administrative Management and High International Studies (INAGHEI) were injured in their falls from a second floor building which had already experienced damage in the earthquake of January 12, 2010 that left some 316,000 dead and hundreds of thousands of injured.
Haitians are still under the shock of the 2010 earthquake whose traces are still seen. Buildings still standing represent serious hazards to the population, collapsed buildings have yet to be cleared and the hundreds of thousands of people are still in tents living in poor conditions.
Students at INAGHEI have called on their authorities to demolish the building located at Cistophe Avenue and relocate them to a more suitable space.
The Office of Civil Protection of the Mayor of Port-au-Prince, who took a provision to bring relief to people in difficulty, appealed to the population not to panic.
The Director of the Bureau of Mines and Energy, Dieuseul Anglade, warned that there may still be other earthquakes, even if they are more widely spaced.
On the risk of another earthquake of high magnitude there is still a high risk, because the fault which caused the earthquake of 2010, did not release all of its potential energy.
Authorities are appealing to the population to stay calm through aftershocks.
