DFA having difficulty finding out if there are Filipino casualties in Haiti

The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) is having difficulty contacting authorities in Haiti to find out if there are Filipino casualties in the earthquake-ravaged country. According to DFA spokesperson Ed Malaya, the department has been inquiring on the status of 157 officers and enlisted personnel from the Armed Forces of the Philippines and 22 others from the Philippine National Police, as well as 447 Filipinos in Haiti. However, Malaya said the Philippine Mission to the United Nations was unable to get information about Filipinos staying in the Caribbean country because of the "difficulty" in establishing contact with the 10th Philippine Peacekeeping Contingent serving with the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti.

Communication lines were severely damaged in Haiti after a strong earthquake hit the country on Tuesday. The earthquake had a preliminary magnitude of 7 and was centered about 10 miles (15 kilometers) west of Port-au-Prince at a depth of 5 miles (8 kilometers), according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). The tremor was the largest to hit the Caribbean nation in more than 200 years, collapsing a hospital where people screamed for help and heavily damaging other buildings, Associated Press said. USGS geophysicist Kristin Marano called it the strongest earthquake since 1770 in what is now Haiti. In 1946, a magnitude-8.1 quake struck the Dominican Republic and also shook Haiti, producing a tsunami that killed 1,790 people. - Nikka Corsino/ARCS/GMANews.TV