More than 1,200 killed and thousands injured after Haiti earthquake

Tropical Depression Grace was approaching the southern coast of Hispaniola, the island comprising Haiti and the Dominican Republic, early Monday bringing with it sustained winds of 35 mph (56 km/h), and higher gusts, CNN meteorologist Haley Brink said.

The quake destroyed 13,694 homes and damaged another 13,785, officials from the agency said.

The destruction has also pushed hospitals to the brink and blocked roads, making it difficult for vital supplies to reach the affected areas.

“We really need help, yesterday I was helping at the hospital and things were out of control,” a volunteer named Marcelin Lorejoie told CNN on Sunday.

“Not enough doctors, not enough medicines and we have people with serious injuries. We need urgent help before things (get) more complicated.”

Authorities are going from house to house in search of survivors — efforts which demand a tremendous amount of resources.

At the site of one collapsed hotel, a CNN team saw just one excavator, which was not working at the time. There was no police or security presence nearby, as people carried air conditioning units away from the wrecked building.

The earthquake struck at 8:30 a.m. local time on Saturday, at a depth of about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles); its epicenter was about 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) northeast of Saint-Louis-du-Sud in the southwest part of the country.

That location is about 96 kilometers (60 miles) west of the epicenter of the disastrous 7.0-magnitude quake that killed an estimated 220,000 to 300,000 people in 2010.