Three killed in Haiti quake collapse

22 Mar 2010, 12:22 pm   -   Source: AAP
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An apartment building has collapsed in Haiti's second-largest city of Cap-Haitien, killing at least three people.

An apartment building has collapsed in Haiti's second-largest city of Cap-Haitien, killing at least three people as fearful residents felt aftershocks from a quake that struck Cuba, a UN spokesman says.

Residents said the tremor struck the northern Haitian city in the early hours of Sunday morning, collapsing the four-story building. Some nearby structures were damaged by the collapse but no other quake effects were reported.

Three survivors were pulled out of the rubble and taken to a hospital, UN spokesman Louicius Euguene said.

Haitian police, civil protection authorities and UN peacekeepers from Chile and Nepal found the body of another person killed inside.

Cap-Haitien lies along the fault line that produced three moderate earthquakes in nearby Cuba on Saturday. It was not affected by the January 12 earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince, about 130 kilometres to the south.

Witnesses said it had been raining, which could have weakened the ground under the structure.

US Geological Survey scientists were studying data on Sunday for signs of the temblor but had no confirmation of the earthquake. A small, 3.7-magnitude aftershock was felt in Port-au-Prince late on Saturday night.

"We don't really see anything that is jumping out of the records but... we're looking at this," geophysicist Rafael Abreu said.

But residents of the northern port city said they were frightened by the shaking.

Last month, three children were killed in Cap-Haitien when a school collapsed after a late night tremor and heavy rain.

There have been several panics in Cap-Haitien since the Port-au-Prince disaster, including two triggered by evangelical churches that convinced thousands that earthquakes and tsunamis were coming on dates that have since passed.

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