Haiti earthquake latest: At least 304 people dead, more than 1,800 injured

There are also concerns that the earthquake could exacerbate the island’s COVID-19 infection rate should displaced people be forced into closer confines.

Jerry Chandler, Haiti’s director of civil protection, said that teams will be sent to the area for search and rescue missions, The Associated Press reported.

The Haitian government “believes high casualties are probable given the earthquake’s magnitude,” Bocchit Edmond, the country’s ambassador to the U.S., said in a statement Saturday afternoon.

“Emergency responses are underway, and damages are being assessed,” Edmond added, saying destruction is “widespread.”

Haiti, which is divided into 10 departments, said 160 deaths took place in Sud, 42 in Nippes, 100 in Grand’Anse and two in Nord-Ouest, according to the civil protection agency.

USGS geophysicist William Barnhart, from the Earthquake Hazards Program, estimated there could be thousands of deaths in the end.

“The number of fatalities does not always make it out,” he told ABC News. “There’s a lot of time that has to go into recovering individuals from buildings and accessing areas and towns.”

The embassy is helping to coordinate response efforts between the U.S. and Haitian governments.

The earthquake was virtually the same size and at the same shallow depth as the 2010 quake, and along the exact same fault line — the Enriquillo Plantain Garden — but farther west and in a less-populated region.