Haiti Quake Death Toll Rises to 15, and 300 Injured

A man walks front of a school damaged in an earthquake, that hit northern Haiti in GROS MORNE, Haiti, Oct. 8, 2018. (Reuters/Ricardo Rojas)

PORT-AU-PRINCE—An earthquake that struck Haiti on Oct. 6 killed 15 people, injured another 300 and destroyed 40 houses, Jerry Chandler, head of the Caribbean country’s civil protection agency, said on Oct. 8.

Chandler was speaking at a news conference to report on the human cost of the relatively shallow, magnitude 5.9 quake, which hit the north of the impoverished country late on Oct. 6.

People injured in an earthquake that hit northern Haiti late on Oct. 6, sleep in a tent, in Port-de-Paix, Haiti, Oct. 7, 2018. (Reuters/Ricardo Rojas)

A woman looks at herself in a mirror while standing outside her house after it was damaged in an earthquake, that hit northern Haiti late on Oct. 6, in Port-de-Paix, Haiti, Oct. 8, 2018. (Reuters/Ricardo Rojas)

The tremor caused widespread panic in the north and was one of the strongest to shake Haiti since a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck near the capital Port-au-Prince in 2010. That quake killed tens of thousands of people.

A magnitude 5.2 aftershock on Oct. 7 in the afternoon that sent people rushing into the street in Port-de-Paix, the coastal town that bore the brunt of the earthquake that occurred on Oct. 6.

By Cheslie Jean Baptiste