Haiti hit by largest quake in 200 years

STAFF REPORT

NOTE: Text "HAITI" to 90999 to donate $10 to @RedCross relief efforts in Haiti. Learn more here.

And click here to make a contribution to the Red Cross disaster relief effort.

U.S. officials have said the death toll in Haiti following the nation's largest earthquake in more than 200 years is up to 200,000, with more than 1.5 million people homeless.

• Related: 'Hope for Haiti' - $58M and counting | Kids can help, too

Nearly 500,000 people have encamped in a tent city in the Champs de Mars square in downtown Port-au-Prince, the largest of numerous tent cities scattered throughout the ruined city.

The campaign using text messages to raise money for the Red Cross reportedly has tallied more than $21 million for relief efforts in Haiti.

While visiting the injured at a U.N. clinic in Port-au-Prince, Haitian President Rene Preval says his country - already the Western Hemisphere's poorest - needs not only medicine and food, but also long-term reconstruction assistance. "The more we receive help, the more we can take care of them," he said.

Limited runway space and battered telecommunications networks are hindering efforts to get food, water and medical aid into the hands of desperate Haitians, according to relief agencies.

Former President Bill Clinton arrived Monday in Haiti, accompanied by his daughter, Chelsea, to check on relief efforts.

A powerful new earthquake struck Haiti at 6:03 a.m. on Wednesday, shaking rubble from damaged buildings and sending people running into the streets just eight days after the country was devastated by a quake.

It was the largest aftershock yet to the Jan. 12 quake. The extent of additional damage or injuries was not immediately clear.

The U.S. Geological Survey said Wednesday's magnitude-6.1 temblor was centered about 35 miles northwest of Port-au-Prince and was 13.7 miles below the surface.

The State Department said 24 Americans are confirmed dead in the Haiti quake. About 25 other American deaths have been reported but not confirmed.

On Monday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said 46 U.N. staff members have died as a result of last week's earthquake, and he fears that number could rise. The previous confirmed toll was 37. The U.N.'s mission headquarters in Port-au-Prince collapsed in the earthquake.

Maxine Fallon, the 23-year-old student rescued in the rubble of a building at Universite G.O.C. in Port-au-Prince, says she was pressed in the same position, with legs folded uncomfortably and very little wiggle room, for all six days she was trapped.

The U.S. State Department said Monday that the number of Haitian children who have left Haiti to be with adoptive parents in the U.S. since last week's earthquake is 24. The State Department says it's working on nearly 300 cases of Americans who are waiting to adopt Haitian children, and 200 of those cases are being accelerated.

As of Friday afternoon, corporate America had pledged more than $40 million in donations to support earthquake relief efforts in Haiti, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

About 3 million people - one-third of Haiti's population - were affected by the quake, according to Red Cross estimates.

About 10 million people felt shaking from the earthquake, including 2 million who felt severe trembling, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated.

Last Wednesday, President Obama announced a "swift, coordinated and aggressive" U.S. response.

"The reports and images that we've seen of collapsed hospitals, crumbled homes and men and women carrying their injured neighbors through the streets are truly heart-wrenching," Obama said.

U.N. assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping operations Edmond Mulet told CNN that the National Penitentiary collapsed during the earthquake and the inmates escaped, prompting worries about looting by escapees.

Built in 1915, the prison was overcrowded. Enlarged to a total capacity of 1,200, it held 3,908 inmates in December, the U.S. State Department has said.

The earthquake had a preliminary magnitude of 7.0 and was centered about 10 miles (15 kilometers) west of Port-au-Prince at a depth of 5 miles (8 kilometers), the U.S. Geological Survey said.

USGS geophysicist Kristin Marano called it the strongest earthquake since 1770 in what is now Haiti. In 1946, a magnitude-8.1 quake struck the Dominican Republic and also shook Haiti, producing a tsunami that killed 1,790 people.