More than 200,000 people were killed in the Jan. 12 earthquake that hit Haiti, Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said on Wednesday.

More than three weeks after the 7.0-magnitude earthquake, Bellerive said his tiny Caribbean nation had been ravaged by "a disaster on a planetary scale" and detailed the tragic toll suffered by his people.

Bellerive said 300,000 people were injured in the disaster, including 4,000 amputees.

Bellerive said he has proposed the formation of an "emergency government" in Haiti to focus on the crisis, but insisted that the authorities, devastated as their ranks have been by the disaster, remained "in control of the situation."

Previous estimates from the Haitian government had put the toll between 150,000 and 200,000 dead.

Agencies