Haiti seems to experience the same nightmares over and over again.

A good eleven years after the devastating earthquake in 2010, another severe earthquake shook the Caribbean country.

The 7.2 quake on Saturday morning around 8:30 am was even stronger than that of 2010. The epicenter was around 130 kilometers west of the capital Port-au-Prince, near the municipality of Saint-Louis-du-Sud, which caused less damage served as then.

Still, the consequences are dramatic.

The death toll has risen to more than 700.

So far, 724 bodies have been recovered, the disaster control authority announced on Sunday.

Hundreds more people are still missing and more than 2,800 people were injured.

Tjerk Brühwiller

Correspondent for Latin America based in São Paulo.

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The full extent of the devastation caused by the recent quake is not yet known. The number of victims is likely to increase significantly in the following days, although it will not be compared to 2010, when more than 200,000 people were killed. According to information so far, the cities of Les Cayes and Jérémie on the southern peninsula are particularly affected. Other localities are also likely to have been heavily devastated. But communication in the region is interrupted, which makes the flow of information more difficult. Doctors report that the hospitals in the region are completely overloaded. In Les Cayes, a staff building of a hospital is said to have collapsed, in which medical students and interns as well as two doctors were housed.

Experts are not surprised that Haiti is repeatedly shaken by severe earthquakes. "The country lies on the edge of a large tectonic plate, the Caribbean plate," said Marco Bohnhoff from the Potsdam Geo Research Center of the German Press Agency. “The problem is that the quake almost reached the surface.” On average, the quake moved the Caribbean plate by around 1.5 meters - “mainly to the side, but with a vertical component”.

The earthquake could hardly have come at a worse time. Haiti is still feeling the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake. The south of the country, which was hardest hit by Saturday's quake, is also recovering from the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew five years ago, which killed more than 500 people. In recent years the economic and later also the political crisis in Haiti has deepened. Protests rocked the country even before the corona pandemic broke out last year. Gang crime has risen sharply, and the security situation is precarious. The assassination of President Jovenel Moïse on July 7th further traumatized the country and its 11 million inhabitants and made the political situation even more complex. The elections scheduled for September have been postponed to November.After the earthquake, however, this date is now also in question.

Prime Minister Ariel Henry described the situation as "dramatic" and declared a state of emergency for a month. "We will take the necessary measures to help the people affected by the earthquake," he promised in a message on Twitter. But it is questionable whether the Haitian government has the necessary capacities to maneuver itself out of the severe crisis. Washington, the United Nations and private aid agencies promised quick relief hours after the earthquake. For the time being, it should be a matter of guaranteeing medical care for the victims. "The United States remains a close and constant friend to the Haitian people, and we will be there after this tragedy," said American President Joe Biden.

Aid from abroad in Haiti has recently become increasingly controversial. Many see the support from abroad as one of the reasons for the country's structural problems. The international community has invested more than $ 13 billion in Haiti over the past few years. This helped the country to bridge the emergency and to ensure the supply of the population, but did little to build a functioning state. The necessary reforms have failed to materialize. Instead, the country's institutions are now undermined, fueling violence and corruption.

But help from abroad could soon become even more urgent. Tropical storm Grace, which formed in the Caribbean, is likely to worsen the situation in Haiti as early as Monday. The rainfalls associated with the storm in particular could become a problem. According to experts, the risk of landslides after an earthquake is even higher.