On October 6, 2018, at approximately 8:11 p.m, a magnitude 5.9

earthquake An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from ...

struck 19 kilometers northwest of

Port-de-Paix Port-de-Paix (; ht, Pòdepè or ; meaning "Port of Peace") is a List of communes of Haiti, commune and the capital of the Nord-Ouest (department), Nord-Ouest Departments of Haiti, department of Haiti on the Atlantic coast. It has a population of ...

Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...

. The earthquake damaged structures and killed 18 people. The earthquake was the strongest to hit Haiti since January 12, 2010, not including the aftershocks of the 2010 earthquake, and the shaking was felt as far away as

Port-au-Prince Port-au-Prince ( , ; ht, Pòtoprens ) is the capital and most populous city of Haiti. The city's population was estimated at 987,311 in 2015 with the metropolitan area estimated at a population of 2,618,894. The metropolitan area is define ...

Tectonic setting

Haiti lies at the boundary between the

Caribbean Plate The Caribbean Plate is a mostly oceanic tectonic plate underlying Central America and the Caribbean Sea off the north coast of South America. Roughly 3.2 million square kilometers (1.2 million square miles) in area, the Caribbean Plate borders ...

and

North American Plate The North American Plate is a tectonic plate covering most of North America, Cuba, the Bahamas, extreme northeastern Asia, and parts of Iceland and the Azores. With an area of , it is the Earth's second largest tectonic plate, behind the Pacific ...

. Movement across this boundary is partitioned across several major structures. The major left-lateral strike slip fault zones of the

Septentrional-Oriente fault zone The Septentrional-Orient fault zone (SOFZ) is a system of active fault, active coaxial left lateral-moving fault (geology)#Strike-slip faults, strike slip faults that runs along the northern side of the island of Hispaniola where Haiti and the Dom ...

and the

Enriquillo–Plantain Garden fault zone The Enriquillo–Plantain Garden fault zone (EPGFZ or EPGZ) is a system of active coaxial left lateral-moving strike slip faults which runs along the southern side of the island of Hispaniola, where Haiti and the Dominican Republic are located. T ...

together accommodate the lateral component of this movement. North of Haiti, the overall deformation is

transpression In geology, transpression is a type of strike-slip deformation that deviates from simple shear because of a simultaneous component of shortening perpendicular to the fault plane. This movement ends up resulting in oblique shear. It is generally ve ...

al in nature and an additional structure, the North Hispaniola Fault, a major thrust zone, takes up the component of convergence at a rate of 5 mm per year.

Damage

The earthquake caused part of a school to collapse in Gros-Morne, damaged the façade of the Paroisse St. Michel A De Plaisance church in Plaisance, caused a cultural center to collapse in Gros-Morne, damaged a holding cell at the Police Nationale d'Haiti Commissariat de Port-de-Paix in Port-de-Paix, allowing several detainees to escape, caused an auditorium to collapse in Gros-Morne, damaged several classrooms at San Gabriel National School in Gros-Morne, and destroyed houses in the

communes An intentional community is a voluntary residential community which is designed to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork from the start. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, religious, ...

Chansolme Chansolme ( ht, Chansòl) is a List of communes of Haiti, commune in the Port-de-Paix Arrondissement, in the Nord-Ouest (department), Nord-Ouest Departments of Haiti, department of Haiti. It has 9,561 inhabitants. References

Populated pla ...

, Gros-Morne, Plaisance, and Port-de-Paix as well as on the

island An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...

of Tortuga. Overall, a total of 2,102 houses were destroyed, and a further 15,932 were damaged.

Casualties

The earthquake killed 18 people and 548 people were injured. Nine of the deaths occurred in Port-de-Paix, seven in Gros-Morne and one in Saint-Louis du Nord.

Response

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...

Jovenel Moïse Jovenel Moïse (; ; 26 June 1968 – 7 July 2021) was a Haitian entrepreneur and politician, who served as the 43rd President of Haiti from 2017 until his assassination in 2021. He was sworn in as president in February 2017 after winning the ...

instructed residents to stay calm and stated that authorities would be responding to those who need help.

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

Jean-Henry Céant Jean Henry Céant (born 27 September 1956) is a Haitian politician who was the twenty-first Prime Minister of Haiti. He was sanctioned by the Canadian Government for his involvement in human rights violations and supporting criminal gangs on 17 N ...

said that a cabinet had been created to help organize the emergency response. The day after the earthquake, President Moïse visited Port-de-Paix de oversee the recovery efforts.

Aftershocks

There have been two aftershocks since the initial earthquake struck. A magnitude 5.2 event occurred nearly 20 hours after the mainshock, with another magnitude 4.2 event happening about 5 hours later. In the first 8 months of 2018, there were 26 earthquakes between the magnitudes of 2.9 and 4.6 recorded.

References

External links

* * {{Earthquakes in 2018

Haiti earthquake Some of the earthquakes in Haiti have been very destructive to the country. The widespread damage and high-number of casualties of events in 2010 and 2021 can be partially blamed on the fact that most of the population in Haiti resides in struct ...

2018 in Haiti Earthquakes in Haiti October 2018 events in North America