School collapsed in Haiti

Update:

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (CNN) — The death toll has climbed to 84 in the collapse a Haitian school that possibly had 700 people inside, a local journalist said Saturday night.

About 115 people were injured and another 200 were still missing, said Clarens Renois of the Haiti Press Network.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (CNN) – Rescue workers in Haiti worked furiously to dig out students buried in the rubble of a school that collapsed Friday, the Red Cross said.

Haitians try to help victims at a school that collapsed Friday in Petionville, Haiti, near Port-au-Prince.

The collapse occurred in Petionville, near the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. The school could have as many as 700 people in it, one rescue official said.

“We are looking at major casualties here,” said Alex Claudon, a Red Cross official on the scene.

Claudon said dozens of students appeared to be trapped inside but couldn’t give an exact number. However, he said it was a typical school day and the building had been crowded.

Most of the students range in age from about 10 to 20, he said, but there are younger ones as well.

Michaele Gédéon, president of Haiti‘s Red Cross, said she heard the voices of distraught children as rescuers tried to calm them down while she was on the phone attempting to coordinate emergency rescue efforts.

“On the phone you can hear so many children, you know, crying, crying and saying, ‘This one is dead, that one is dead,’ ” Gédéon said.

Claudon said hundreds of bystanders and rescue workers were digging through the rubble. But he said, “What we need right now is heavy search-and-rescue equipment.”