The island of Hispaniola , shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic , is seismically active and has a history of destructive earthquakes . During Haiti 's time as a French colony , earthquakes were recorded by French historian Moreau de Saint-Méry ( 1750 – 1819 ) . He described damage done by an earthquake in 1751 , writing that " only one masonry building had not collapsed " in Port-au-Prince ; he also wrote that the " whole city collapsed " in the 1770 Port-au-Prince earthquake . Cap-Haïtien , other towns in the north of Haiti and the Dominican Republic , and the Sans-Souci Palace were destroyed during an earthquake on 7 May 1842 . A magnitude 8.0 earthquake struck the Dominican Republic and shook Haiti on 4 August 1946 , producing a tsunami that killed 1,790 people and injured many others
magnitude 8.0 earthquake
1946 Dominican Republic earthquake
2010 Haiti earthquake