Magnitude 4.1 earthquake recorded in near Port-au-Prince

NEW YORK — A magnitude 4.1 earthquake was reported in southeast Haiti and its neighboring commune on Aug. 4 and Aug. 5, according to Volcano Discovery and local monitoring agencies.

The magnitude 4.1 quake struck at 11:02 p.m. local time, at a depth of 5 kilometers, with the epicenter located approximately 15 kilometers southeast of Port-au-Prince. According to preliminary data from RaspberryShake’s citizen-seismograph network, the tremor was felt in several cities, including Pétion-Ville, Croix-des-Bouquets, and Kenscoff.

In Delmas, Port-au-Prince, and as far as Gressier and Thomazeau, residents reported weak to light shaking. There were no immediate reports of injuries or significant damage, though objects were knocked off shelves in some homes.

Other towns or cities near the epicenter where the quake might have been felt as very weak shaking include Léogâne, located 45 kilometers from the epicenter, and Petit-Goave, 70 kilometers away.

Engineer Claude Preptit, the country’s General Director of the Bureau of Mines, Energy and Natural Resources, said on local Radio Caraïbes that in the last 48 hours, 12 tremors were recorded between the evening of Aug. 4 and the morning of Aug. 5 in many areas abd the latest in the areas of Laboule, La Plaine, and Fonds Parisien.

Residents in parts of Croix-des-Bouquets, North of Port-au-Prince, reported feeling shaking around 10 p.m. on Aug. 4, and the most recent tremor was recorded in Laboule on the morning of Aug. 5.

A separate magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck off the southeast coast of the Dominican Republic early Tuesday, jolting residents in that country as well as in neighboring Puerto Rico, according to regional monitoring agencies. No major damage was reported.

Haiti shares the island with the Dominican Republic and sits at the convergence of the North American and Caribbean tectonic plates—an area prone to frequent seismic activity.

In August 2021, a magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck southern Haiti, killing more than 2,000 people. 

Preptit said the recent tremors were concentrated in a known fault zone—part of the same system involved in the catastrophic 7.0 earthquake of January 2010 that devastated Port-au-Prince and killed hundreds of thousands. However, he cautioned against drawing direct comparisons to the 2010 catastrophe and the August 2021 earthquake that struck the South, particularly in Les Cayes, where a similar cluster of tremors had been recorded over the preceding year.

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