Haitian School Collapses With Children Inside

A school building in the hills of Haiti's capital has collapsed killing at least seven people and injuring many more, according to a report from CNN.

Aid workers fear that the death toll could rise.

It was a typical school day at the school in Petionville, near Port-au-Prince.  There could be as many as 700 students in the building.  The students range from ages 10 to 20, but there could be younger ones as well.

At about 10:00am this morning, the second story of the three-story building collapsed, bringing down the building with children inside.

"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."

Survivors have been extricated, officials said.

Along with the Red Cross and bystanders, government, medical and humanitarian groups and U.N. and U.S. officials are helping"

The cause for the collapse is yet unknown.  Most of the students came from the surrounding shantytown.

Haiti has been hit by several natural disasters over the past few months.  In this already impoverished nation, tropical storms have wiped out food crops, damaged irrigation systems and pumping stations, raising the spectre of acute hunger for millions.