At 8:29 AM local time on August 14, 2021, a magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck the Tiburon Peninsula of southern Haiti, with its epicenter near Petit-Trou-de-Nippes approximately 150 kilometers west of Port-au-Prince. The earthquake, one of the strongest to strike the region since the catastrophic 2010 event, triggered tsunami warnings, massive landslides, and the collapse of thousands of buildings across the southern departments of Haiti.
The cities of Les Cayes and Jérémie were among the hardest hit, with extensive building collapses, deaths, and injuries reported within minutes of the quake. Sacred Heart church in Les Cayes, one of the city’s most prominent buildings, partially collapsed. Hospitals were overwhelmed with casualties almost immediately, with medical staff performing surgeries outdoors as facilities were either damaged or flooded with patients.
The initial death toll reports began at the hundreds and rose through the day and following days as rescue teams reached more remote affected areas. By the time the count was finalized, at least 2,248 people had been confirmed killed and more than 12,200 injured. An estimated 650,000 people required immediate humanitarian assistance. More than 137,500 buildings were damaged or destroyed across the affected region.
The earthquake struck a population that was already reeling from the assassination of the president five weeks earlier, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, gang violence, and the accumulated damage of years of political crisis. “The whole crisis that Haiti has been going through, especially in the last few months,” one journalist in Port-au-Prince told NPR, “the country was never really ready to face yet another earthquake of such a magnitude.”