Close to 1,300 people have died after an earthquake hit Haiti, according to the head of the country’s civil protection agency.
The 7.2 magnitude quake hit on Saturday destroying thousands of homes and buildings in the Caribbean nation which is still is reeling from the assassination of its president last month.
At least 1,297 people are said to have died and more than 2,800 were injured, said Jerry Chandler.
The confirmed death toll had previously stood at 724, but US geological officials have estimated that thousands may have been killed.
Churches, hotels, and schools were badly damaged or destroyed while hospitals in the country were left overwhelmed with some doctors forced to treat injured patients on hospital stretchers underneath trees and on mattresses.
“We do have a serious issue,” Mr Chandler told Reuters, adding, “there are very important facilities that are dysfunctional as we speak and those that are functional are receiving an overflow of patients”.
The Dominican Republic and Mexico were quick to send desperately needed food and medicines by air and across Haiti’s land border.
Colombia sent search and rescue personnel while the US dispatched vital supplies and deployed a 65-person urban search-and-rescue team with specialised equipment.
It comes 11 years after another major earthquake which killed more than 200,000 people.
