Haiti quakes kill two, send residents flooding into the streets

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Haiti was struck by a 5.3 magnitude earthquake and a series of smaller tremors yesterday that killed two people and led panicked residents of the Caribbean nation’s southern peninsula to flood into the streets.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported that the first quake hit an area near the city of Les Cayes and was followed by tremors of 4.4 and 5.1 in the same area, just six months after a major tremor in the same region killed more than 2,000 people.

One person died in Fond des Nègres and a second in Anse-à-Veau, where 35 homes were destroyed, Haiti’s civil protection authority said in a tweet, adding that a road and a bridge had also been destroyed.

Jean Robert Léger, a resident of the town of Pestel on the southern peninsula, said the impact appeared to be minimal.

“In Pestel, there is not so much damage,” he said by p