'We can hear people screaming under the rubble.' Harrowing stories emerge in Haiti

Harrowing stories of survival and tragedy are emerging from Haiti, where a devastating 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck Saturday morning.

"We can hear people screaming under the rubble," Widchell Augustin of the southern port city of Les Cayes told The New York Times. "People are running back and forth to the hospital."

The earthquake struck about 75 miles west of the capital of Port-au-Prince, killing hundreds and causing widespread damage across southern and western Haiti.

Former Haiti Prime Minister Rosny Smarth, who lives in Cavaillon in the south, told The Miami Herald that he was at home when he felt the ground rumbling.

"I ran out with my brother," said Smarth, who retired to the region from Port-au-Prince last year. "A lot of homes in Cavaillon have been destroyed."

"The impact of this is huge," Ralph Simon, a radio station owner in Jeremie, told The Washington Post. "I was still in bed with my children and my wife. My wife had a heart attack, and I had to save her life. ... There's damage to houses. People are crying."

Makenson Pierre, 32, had just returned home to Jeremie on Friday, USA Today reported. He was in the shower Saturday morning when the earthquake struck.

He made it safely outside with a friend and the friend's daughter, but another friend in another part of the city died in the disaster, Pierre said.

"He was a great guy," Pierre told USA Today. "We grew up together. It was painful to watch. He was too young."

In Port-au-Prince, the early-morning shaking brought back memories of the deadly 2010 quake, Naomi Verneus told The Associated Press.

"I woke up and didn't have time to put my shoes on," she said. "We lived the 2010 earthquake and all I could do was run. I later remembered my two kids and my mother were still inside. My neighbor went in and told them to get out. We ran to the street."

"In my neighborhood, I heard people screaming," Sephora Pierre Louis of Port-au-Prince told Reuters. "They were flying outside. At least they know to go outside. In 2010, they didn't know what to do. People are still outside in the street."

"In the beginning I didn't think of an earthquake," Jean-Wickens Merone, a spokesperson with World Vision Haiti in Port-au-Prince, told CNN. "I felt a shake but as it lasted more than five to 10 seconds, I realized it was an earthquake. Both sides of the house was shaking. I wasn't panicked. I realized it would take seconds to get out of house and it was best to let it pass."