The quake's epicentre was 40km from Fort-de-France, Martinique

A strong earthquake measuring 7.4 magnitude has hit near the island of
Martinique in the eastern Caribbean, the US Geological Survey has said.

The earthquake struck at 1500 (1900 GMT) off the north-west coast of
Martinique at a depth of 145.4 kilometres (90.4 miles).

There have been unconfirmed reports that some buildings have collapsed
in Martinique's capital, Fort-de-France.

The earthquake was centred 40km (25 miles) north-west of Fort-de-France,
the US Geological Survey (USGS) said.

'Everything shook'

"For the moment, a building and a bank have collapsed. There is panic,
but we do not know if there are casualties," a police source in
Fort-de-France told the French news agency AFP.

Callers to Radio Martinique described their fear as the quake struck.

"My house shook so hard I thought it was going to fall. The door, the
windows, everything shook," the Associated Press reported one caller as
saying.

"I wouldn't expect major damage because the quake has some depth," Don
Blakeman, a geophysicist at the National Earthquake Information Center
in Golden, Colorado told AP.

There were also reports that the islands of Guadeloupe and Dominica had
felt the quake strongly.

Residents on islands further across the eastern Caribbean - as far away
as Puerto Rico to the north and Trinidad and Tobago to the south - told
the USGS that they had felt the quake.

The tremor was also felt hundreds of miles away in South America.

In the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, 500 miles (800km) from the
epicentre, some people evacuated office buildings, Reuters news agency
reported.

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