Haiti hit by 7.0-magnitude earthquake; buildings leveled in Port-au-Prince

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Major earthquake hits Haiti

This gallery collects all of our photos of the crisis in Haiti, starting with the most recent images and going back to the first photos that emerged after an earthquake hit the impoverished nation Jan. 12.

» LAUNCH PHOTO GALLERY

As of 7 p.m., Crowley said, U.S. officials had been unable to reach their Haitian counterparts in the capital.

Crowley said the State Department will continue to reach out in the hopes of offering assistance to the island nation, considered the poorest in the Western Hemisphere.

"Haiti is one of the poorest countries on Earth, and clearly the most challenged in our hemisphere," he said. "We have tried to reach out to the government of Haiti . . . but we haven't been successful. We are standing by to provide whatever assistance we can."

The World Bank, which said that its local offices were destroyed but that most staff members were accounted for, plans to send a team to help Haiti assess damage and plan a recovery, Reuters news agency reported.

In Port-au-Prince, Zelenka, the relief agency director, said that the walls of the CRS headquarters had collapsed but that the building was "only twisted" and that employees were able to get out safely. He said he hoped a contingent of more than 8,000 U.N. troops stationed in the country would be able to help by daybreak.

"Haiti is not used to earthquakes," he said. "There is no earth-moving equipment available."

Kristie van de Wetering, a former Oxfam employee still based in Port-au-Prince, described the situation as "very chaotic, with houses in rubble everywhere."

"There is a blanket of dust rising from the valley south of the capital," van de Wetering said. "We can hear people calling for help from every corner. The aftershocks are ongoing and making people very nervous."

The quake hit about the time that children would be coming home from school, and it was not immediately known whether students had made it home by then or how their houses had fared in the long and powerful temblor.

In an interview with CNN from Port-au-Prince, eyewitness Michael Bazile described panic in a severely damaged city.

"Everybody is on the street. The traffic is jammed," he said. "Everybody is yelling. They are praying. They are crying. Many houses are down. We really don't know what's going on. And every 30 minutes, we feel it again. We pray it's over, but we don't know."

The Haitian ambassador to the United States said on CNN that he had talked to a top official by cellphone moments after the quake hit the island.