HAITI is the the third largest country in the Caribbean by area.

Thousands of of people are feared dead after a huge 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit western Haiti on August 14.

Where is Haiti located?

Haiti is a Caribbean country that shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic to its east. 

It is located  to the east of Cuba and Jamaica and south of The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

To its south-west lies the small island of Navassa Island, which is claimed by Haiti but is disputed as a United States territory under federal administration

It has a population of over 11million people. It's official languages are Haitian Creole and French.

Haiti is one of the poorest nations in the world, with 60 percent of its population living below the poverty line.

The country is still recovering from a magnitude 7 earthquake closer to the capital in 2010 ago that killed at least 250,000 people, injured 300,000, and displaced more than 1.5 million.

Was Haiti hit by an earthquake?

The quake struck 8 km from the town of Petit Trou de Nippes, about 150 km west of the capital Port-au-Prince, at a depth of 10 km, the US Geological Survey said.

Follow our Haiti earthquake blog for all the latest news and updates.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) has estimated “thousands of fatalities” and “tens of thousands of injuries in poor mountainous communities."

“High casualties are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” the USGS said around an hour after the quake.

Images posted to social media also showed significant damage to buildings including collapsed homes and rubble splayed across the road.

Economic losses could range in the tens of millions, USGS reports.

"Everyone is really afraid. It's been years since such a big earthquake," Daniel Ross, a resident in the eastern Cuban city of Guantanamo, told Reuters, adding that his home stood firm but the furniture shook.

Naomi Verneus, a 34-year-old resident of Port-au-Prince, told the AP she was jolted awake by the earthquake and that her bed was shaking.

“I woke up and didn’t have time to put my shoes on. We lived the 2010 earthquake and all I could do was run," she said.

"I later remembered my two kids and my mother were still inside. My neighbor went in and told them to get out. We ran to the street."

A video posted to social media depicted a chaotic and frightening scene in Les Cayes, where a building had collapsed onto a street and panic-stricken residents are heard crying out in the background.

The earthquake was also felt across the Caribbean, including in Jamaica and Cuba.

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