According to BBC:
Haiti devastated by massive earthquake
"All of a sudden everything was just falling apart ... there was no place to hide"
A massive 7.0-magnitude earthquake has struck the Caribbean nation of Haiti.
The extent of the devastation is still unclear but there are fears thousands of people may have died.
Haiti's worst quake in two centuries hit south of the capital Port-au-Prince on Tuesday, wrecking the presidential palace, UN HQ and other buildings.
A "large number" of UN personnel were reported missing by the organisation. Many people have spent the night outside amid fears of more aftershocks.
The Red Cross says up to three million people have been affected.
Describing the earthquake as a "catastrophe", Haiti's envoy to the US said the cost of the damage could run into billions.
A number of nations, including the US, UK and Venezuela, are gearing up to send aid.
The quake, which struck about 15km (10 miles) south-west of Port-au-Prince, was quickly followed by two strong aftershocks of 5.9 and 5.5 magnitude.
The tremor hit at 1653 (2153 GMT) on Tuesday, the US Geological Survey said. Phone lines to the country failed shortly afterward.
There is still no official word on casualties and the extent of the devastation is only now becoming clearer with dawn breaking.
China has already indicated in reports in state media that eight of its peacekeepers are buried and feared dead, with another 10 unaccounted for.
The AFP news agency quoted the Jordanian army as saying three of its peacekeepers had been killed and 21 wounded.
The Brazilian army said four of its peacekeepers were killed and a large number were missing.
A French official told AFP about 200 people were missing in the collapsed Hotel Montana, which is popular with tourists.
There have also been some reports of looting overnight.
Rachmani Domersant, an operations manager with the Food for the Poor charity, told Reuters that overnight the capital was in total darkness.
"You have thousands of people sitting in the streets with nowhere to go. There are people running, crying, screaming.
"People are trying to dig victims out with flashlights. I think hundreds of casualties would be a serious understatement."
Earlier, bodies white with dust could be seen piled on the back of a pick-up truck as vehicles tried to ferry the injured to hospital.
Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere and has suffered a number of recent disasters, including four hurricanes and storms in 2008 that killed hundreds.
'Thoughts and prayers'
In a statement issued in New York, the UN said that its local HQ in Haiti had "sustained serious damage along with other UN installations" and "a large number" of personnel were missing.
UN peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy said it was unclear how many people were in the building.
The head of the UN mission in Haiti, Hedi Annabi, was reported to have been inside and is unaccounted for.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said he was believed to be dead.
The UN's stabilisation mission plays a vital role in ensuring security in Haiti.
Raymond Joseph, Haiti's ambassador to the US, said the presidential palace, the tax office, the ministry of commerce and the foreign ministry had all been damaged, but the airport was intact.
He and Haiti's ambassador to Mexico, Robert Manuel, both said that President Rene Preval and his wife had survived the quake.
The World Bank said its local offices were destroyed but most of the staff were accounted for, Reuters reported.
US President Barack Obama said his "thoughts and prayers" were with the people of Haiti and that he expected "an aggressive, coordinated [aid] effort by the US government".
Venezuela says it will send a 50-strong "humanitarian assistance team".
The Red Cross is dispatching a relief team from Geneva and the UN's World Food Programme is flying in two planes with emergency food aid.
The Inter-American Development Bank said it was immediately approving a $200,000 grant for emergency aid.
The UK said it was mobilising help and was "ready to provide whatever humanitarian assistance may be required".
Canada, Australia, France and a number of Latin American nations have also said they are mobilising their aid response.
Pope Benedict XVI has called for a generous response to the "tragic situation" in Haiti.
'Shouting and screaming'
In the minutes after the quake, Henry Bahn, a visiting official from the US Department of Agriculture, said he had seen houses which had tumbled into a ravine.
"Everybody is just totally, totally freaked out and shaken," said Mr Bahn, who described the sky as "just grey with dust".
He said he had been walking to his hotel room when the ground began to shake.
"I just held on and bounced across the wall," he said. "I just heard a tremendous amount of noise and shouting and screaming in the distance."
Reports on the Twitter message site, which cannot yet be verified by the BBC, expressed the chaos in the wake of the quake.
Tweets from troylivesay spoke of the worst damage being in the Carrefour district, where "many two and three storey buildings did not make it".
In the immediate aftermath of the quake, a tsunami watch was put out for Haiti, Cuba and the Bahamas, but this was later lifted.
From CNN:
Haiti appeals for aid; official fears 100,000 dead after earthquake
Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) -- Rescue workers struggled to clear rubble and bodies Wednesday from the streets of Haiti's "flattened" capital, where a government official said the death toll from Tuesday's 7.0-magnitude earthquake may exceed 100,000.
Thousands of injured people waited for care outside badly damaged hospitals, while an unknown number remained trapped inside collapsed buildings. Basic services like water and electricity were out, and Haitian President Rene Preval said his government needs help clearing streets so rescuers can reach some of the hardest-hit areas.
"We need medicine. We need medical help in general," Preval told CNN. "Some of the hospitals, they collapsed."
People were digging though the rubble of leveled buildings with their hands Wednesday, looking for survivors or bodies, CNN's Anderson Cooper reported from Port-au-Prince. Other CNN correspondents in Port-au-Prince and its suburbs reported whole blocks of collapsed buildings, with dozens of bodies piled in the streets.
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- Haiti
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Video images captured just moments after the temblor show dust-covered survivors rushing through the streets, yelling in terror. Others trapped in buildings are seen punching out debris and bricks, and shouting for help and trying to squeeze themselves out through cracks in the structures.
Port-au-Prince "is flattened," said Haiti's consul general to the U.N., Felix Augustin, who said he believed more than 100,000 people were dead.
But Preval said other estimates ranged from 30,000 to 50,000.
"It's too early to give a number," Preval said.
Hear the prime minister describe the situation 
The 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck shortly before 5 p.m. Tuesday, centered about 10 miles (15 kilometers) southwest of Port-au-Prince, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. It could be felt strongly in eastern Cuba, more than 200 miles away.
The earthquake's power matched that of several nuclear bombs, said Roger Searle, a professor of geophysics in the Earth Sciences Department at Durham University in England. He said the combination of its magnitude and geographical shallowness made it particularly dangerous.
About 3 million people -- one-third of Haiti's population -- were affected by the quake, the Red Cross said. About 10 million people most likely felt shaking from the earthquake, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
AC360 Blog: Anderson outside Haiti's National Cathedral
As night fell over the island Wednesday, gunshots sounded off in Port-au-Prince. Screams and wails could be heard with each aftershock. Some people who still had homes refused to go inside, fearing collapse. Scores huddled together in parks and sidewalks, trying to get rest.
Though planes carrying aid began arriving Wednesday, humanitarian groups struggled to get the supplies to victims due to the poor roads and debris.
There was no clear system for clearing debris, removing bodies and treating the injured, officials and journalists reported.
"Simply getting through the streets to collect the dead bodies is seemingly an impossible task," CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta reported from the capital, where shooting could be heard in the background. "There's hardly any heavy machinery to try and dig through the rubble -- people are doing it by hand.
"The hospitals themselves -- the destination of those patients who might survive -- they're nonexistent or have a terrible infrastructure," Gupta said.
Haiti native and "Heroes" cast member Jimmy Jean-Louis was searching for his elderly parents in Haiti on Wednesday. He said the Haitian government is not up to addressing the overwhelming nature of the disaster.
"Just as an example ... we had one school that collapsed -- one school, and we were unable to take care of that," he said, referring to a November 2008 incident that killed 90 people in Petionville, Haiti. "This year, we have the entire city [of Port-au-Prince] that collapsed, including the major points such as hospitals, hotels and even the presidential palace."
Former President Clinton, the U.N. special envoy to Haiti, appealed to the public to support programs that will provide food, water, shelter and medical supplies to the impoverished country.
"The most important thing you can do is not to send those supplies, but to send cash" to relief agencies, Clinton said.
Governments and agencies across the globe geared up to help, including rescue teams from China, Iceland and France, Haiti's onetime colonial ruler; aid flights and 3 million euros ($4.35 million) from Spain; doctors from Cuba; and a field hospital from Russia.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the United Nations plans to release $10 million in aid immediately, while the World Bank pledged another $100 million Wednesday afternoon.
President Obama promised a "swift, coordinated and aggressive" response from the United States.
"The reports and images that we've seen of collapsed hospitals, crumbled homes and men and women carrying their injured neighbors through the streets are truly heart-wrenching," Obama said.
Watch survivors describe what they saw
Clinton also urged international leaders to fulfill their previous donor commitments to Haiti.
"Most countries are way behind on fulfilling it. ... If you can provide any emergency help, if you can give us helicopters or basic medical supplies -- we need that," Clinton said.
The U.S. military is working to get ground and air assessments of the damage, with Coast Guard cutters, airplanes and choppers deploying to the scene, and Navy ships preparing to leave.
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Two Coast Guard crews of C-130 Hercules fixed-wing aircraft were evacuating nearly 140 U.S. personnel to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Nine critically injured peopled were taken to the U.S. Naval Hospital Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Numerous relief organizations were already working in Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest country, when the quake struck Tuesday afternoon. Aid groups scrambled to help in the aftermath of the quake, but were struggling with the same problems as ordinary Haitians.
In a small clinic in Port-au-Prince, doctors were overwhelmed with the causalities coming in. Bodies and bleeding wounded seemed to cover every inch of the clinic.
A woman with a broken leg sat on the floor next to the body of a dead toddler who was covered by a sheet. She'd been waiting for treatment since Tuesday.
A CNN crew at the clinic counted at least 13 other adult bodies piled outside. Others were still alive, leaning on walls, lying on floors in despair.
None of the three aid centers run by Doctors Without Borders was operable Wednesday, the group said. The organization was focusing on re-establishing surgical capacity so it could deal with the crushed limbs and head wounds it is seeing.
The earthquake sheared huge slabs of concrete off structures and pancaked scores of buildings, trapping people inside those buildings, and knocking down phone and power lines.
"One woman, I could only see her head and the rest of her body was trapped under a block wall," said Jonathan de la Durantaye, who drove through Port-au-Prince after the quake. "I think she was dead. She had blood coming out of her eyes and nose and ears."
The headquarters of the U.N. mission in Haiti, a peacekeeping and police force established after the 2004 ouster of then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, collapsed during the quake, leaving leaving about 150 members unaccounted for, U.N. officials in New York said Wednesday. At least 10 survivors were pulled from rubble at the U.N. mission, according to former President Clinton.
The top two civilian officials at the U.N. mission, Special Representative Hedi Annabi and his deputy, Luiz Carlos da Costa, were believed trapped in the rubble of the hotel that housed the world body's headquarters, their fates unknown, said Alain Le Roy, the undersecretary-general for peacekeeping operations.
The Brazilian-led mission has about 9,000 troops, police and civilian staff in Haiti, about a third of whom were in Port-au-Prince. At least 16 peacekeepers, including 11 Brazilians, three Jordanians, one Argentine and one Chadian, were reported dead Wednesday afternoon, U.N. officials said.
Also among the dead was Joseph Serge Miot, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Port-au-Prince, according to the official Vatican newspaper. The archbishop was buried beneath rubble along with 100 priests and aspiring priests attending a religious conference, Papal Nuncio Bernardito Auza told the Vatican's Fides news agency.
"There were priests and nuns in the street. ... Everywhere, you heard cries from beneath the rubble," Auza said.
Authorities braced for civil disturbances. Edmond Mulet, the U.N. assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping operations, told CNN that the 95-year-old, badly overcrowded National Penitentiary in the capital, collapsed and the inmates escaped, prompting worries about looting by escapees.
Obama urged Americans trying to locate family members in Haiti to telephone the State Department at 1-888-407-4747.
Are you looking for loved ones?
The presidential palace in Port-au-Prince was in ruins. Preval, Haiti's president, said he did not know where he was going to sleep Wednesday night.
"I have plenty of time to look for a bed," he said late in the afternoon. "But now I am working on how to rescue the people. Sleeping is not the problem."
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