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Quake hits off Cayman Islands
January 19, 2010 — Updated 1813 GMT (0213 HKT)
STORY HIGHLIGHTS

* No immediate reports of injuries after earthquake off Cayman Islands
* “There was quite a bit of shaking,” says shop manager in George Town, Cayman Islands
* U.K. territory in Caribbean about 600 miles west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti

RELATED TOPICS

* Earthquakes
* Cayman Islands
* Caribbean

(CNN) — A 5.8-magnitude earthquake struck Tuesday off the Cayman Islands, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The 6.2-mile deep quake hit at 9:23 a.m. ET, 40 miles from George Town, Cayman Islands, the USGS reported. George Town, the capital, is on the western shore of Grand Cayman Island.

There were no immediate reports of injuries in the three-island chain in the Caribbean.

The British territory of the Cayman Islands is about 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, which was devastated last week by a 7.0-magnitude earthquake.

Tuesday’s quake struck about 32 miles (52 kilometers) east-southeast of Bodden Town in the center of the southern coast of Grand Cayman Island.

Are you in the Cayman Islands? Share photos, video

It caused shaking at the Pedro St. James National Historic Site, about a 10-minute drive from Bodden Town, said Sonya Hydes, the gift shop manager.

“There was quite a bit of shaking,” she said.

Hydes said she called her husband after the shaking stopped to see if their house was affected. He told her that he felt the quake but that it did not damage their house.

There are reports that the quake toppled power lines in Bodden Town, said Kafara Augustine, a news producer for Cayman 27.

Augustine said she felt the shaking from within her office in central George Town. She and her colleagues quickly evacuated the building, seeking safety in the streets, she said. The two-story building did not suffer any damage and from what she could see, everything else seemed unharmed during the quake, she said.

The quake startled Davy Ebanks, general manager of the North Sound Club, a golf course on the Seven Mile Beach strip of western Grand Cayman Island. He said he was reading about the earthquake in Haiti on the Internet when he suddenly felt shaking.

“I just bolted,” he said. “It was rocking and rolling pretty good.”

The trembling knocked some picture frames off balance and sent some mannequins tumbling in the pro shop, but otherwise did little damage at the club, he said.

About 215 miles (346 kilometers) from the temblor in Cienfuegos, Cuba — a city on the southern coast of the communist island — residents said they felt nothing.

The Caymans are about 167 (268 kilometers) miles northwest of Jamaica and about 140 miles (240 kilometers) south of Cuba, according to the CIA World Fact Book.

Tags: British Territory, Cayman 27, Cayman Islands, Cnn, Earthquake, Earthquakes, East Southeast, Ebanks, Gift Shop, Gmt, Grand Cayman Island, Haiti, January 19, Kilometers, Magnitude Earthquake, Pedro St, Port Au Prince, Port Au Prince Haiti, Quake, Quake Hits, Share Photos, St James, Temblor, U S Geological Survey, Usgs

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PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – A major earthquake hit impoverished Haiti on Tuesday, toppling buildings in the capital Port-au-Prince, burying residents in rubble and causing many deaths and injuries, witnesses in the city said.

The magnitude 7.0 quake, whose epicenter was inland and only 10 miles from Port-au-Prince, sent panic-stricken people screaming into the streets of the city, as a cloud of dust and smoke from falling buildings rose into the sky.

As darkness fell amid scenes of chaos and anguished cries from victims, residents desperately tried to dig out survivors or searched for missing relatives in debris-strewn streets.

The presidential palace was among the buildings damaged, Haiti’s ambassador to the United States, Raymond Alcide Joseph, told CNN.

“My country is facing a major catastrophe,” he said.

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and has a history of destructive natural disasters. Some 9,000 U.N. police and troops are stationed there to maintain order.

The major quake, followed by several aftershocks, prompted a tsunami watch for parts the Caribbean but this was later canceled.

“Everything started shaking, people were screaming, houses started collapsing … it’s total chaos,” Reuters reporter Joseph Guyler Delva said in Port-au-Prince.

“I saw people under the rubble, and people killed,” he added, saying he had witnessed dozens of casualties.

U.S. President Barack Obama said his “thoughts and prayers” were with the people of Haiti and pledged to come to their aid. The Obama administration said the State Department, USAID and U.S. military were working to coordinate assistance.

The United States “will be providing both civilian and military disaster relief and humanitarian assistance,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.

A local employee for the charity Food for the Poor reported seeing a five-story building collapse in Port-au-Prince, spokeswoman Kathy Skipper told Reuters.

Another Food for the Poor employee said there were more houses destroyed than standing in Delmas Road, a major thoroughfare in the city.

“Within a minute of the quake … soil, dust and smoke rose up over the city, a blanket that completely covered the city and obscured it for about 12 minutes until the atmospheric conditions dissipated the dust,” Mike Godfrey, who works for USAID, told CNN from the city.

Experts said the quake’s epicenter was very shallow at a depth of only 6.2 miles, which was likely to have magnified the destruction.

PEOPLE SCREAMED ‘JESUS, JESUS’

Speaking to CNN from Port-au-Prince, Ian Rogers of the charity Save the Children said he could hear cries of anguish and mourning rising up from around the city in the darkness.

Homes and buildings built on hillsides had come crashing down along with earth and rubble.

“All the roads currently are blocked,” Rogers said.

“People were screaming ‘Jesus, Jesus’ and running in all directions,” Delva said.

The Hotel Montana in Port-au-Prince, where many foreigners stay, suffered at least some minor damage.

Tags: Alcide, Anguished Cries, Barack Obama, Cnn, Country Of Haiti, Delva, Destructive Natural Disasters, Disaster Relief, Falling Buildings, Guyler, Hillary Clinton, Military Disaster, Missing Relatives, People Of Haiti, Poorest Country, Port Au Prince, Streets Of The City, Thoughts And Prayers, Total Chaos, Western Hemisphere

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