AU-PRINCE, January 13, 2010 (SPA) - A major earthquake rocked Haiti, killing possibly thousands of people as it toppled the presidential palace and hillside shanties alike and leaving the poor Caribbean nation appealing for international help. A five-storey U.N. building was also brought down Tuesday by the 7.0 magnitude quake, the most powerful to hit Haiti in more than 200 years according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Reuters television footage from the capital, Port-au-Prince, showed scenes of chaos on the streets with people sobbing and appearing dazed amid the rubble. The quake"s epicenter was only 10 miles (16 km) from Port-au-Prince, which has a population of about 1 million, and aftershocks as powerful as 5.9 rattled the city throughout the night and into Wednesday. Reports on casualties and damage were slow to get out of Haiti due to communication problems. As the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti is ill-equipped to respond to such a disaster. "I am appealing to the world, especially the United States, to do what they did for us back in 2008 when four hurricanes hit Haiti," Raymond Alcide Joseph, Haiti"s ambassador to Washington, said in a CNN interview. "At that time the U.S. dispatched ... a hospital ship off the coast of Haiti. I hope that will be done again ... and help us in this dire situation that we find ourselves in. I"m asking the Haitians who are abroad to work together and bring all the effort in a concerted manner to help those back home." Sara Fajardo, a spokeswoman for Relief Services, told the Los Angeles Times that it"s representative in Haiti said the death toll could be in the thousands.
