An apartment building has collapsed in Haiti's second-largest city of Cap-Haitien, killing at least 3 people as fearful residents felt aftershocks from a quake that struck Cuba.

Residents said the tremor struck Haiti's second-largest city of Cap-Haitien shortly after midnight, collapsing the four-story building. Some nearby structures were damaged by the collapse but no other quake effects were reported.

Three survivors were pulled out of the rubble and taken to a hospital, U.N. spokesman Louicius Euguene said.

Cap-Haitien was spared on January 12 when a 7.0-magnitude earthquake flattened much of the capital Port-au-Prince and other parts of southern Haiti, killing more than 220,000 people.

Cap-Haitien, a northern city with a population of 300,000, lies on a separate fault line prone to significant tremors and residents said they felt several overnight that probably caused the house collapse.

U.S. Geological Survey scientists were studying data Sunday for signs of the temblor but had no confirmation of the earthquake. A small, 3.7-magnitude aftershock was felt in Port-au-Prince late Saturday night.

"We don't really see anything that is jumping out of the records but ... we're looking at this," geophysicist Rafael Abreu said.

But residents of the northern port city said they were frightened by the shaking.


Agencies