( CNN ) -- With phone lines down and communication cut , Haitians living in America are `` sick with worry '' and scrambling for information about Tuesday 's earthquake , while fretting about their troubled homeland and their loved ones . `` Well , we 're watching the news unfold , and I just do n't know what to think , '' said Gepsi Metellus , executive director of the Sant La Haitian Neighborhood Center in Miami , Florida . She said her mother , who splits her time between Haiti -- she lives in Pétionville , a suburb of Port-au-Prince -- and Miami , just flew back to the island on Friday . While Metellus and others are glued to TVs , she said , `` We 're not learning a thing . It 's just making me sick with worry . '' Are you looking for loved ones in Haiti ? Haiti is the most impoverished nation in the Western Hemisphere . Plagued with `` political violence for most of its history , '' according to the CIA World Factbook , the Caribbean island nation has suffered from colonialism , coups and corruption since becoming the first black republic in 1804 . Are you there ? Submit an iReport . More than half of the country lives in `` abject poverty . '' The nation imports more than four times the goods it exports and about two-thirds of the labor force lacks formal jobs , the CIA reports . `` You worry about everything at this point , '' said Metellus . She said the Haitian community in South Florida numbers from 250,000 to 500,000 people . `` The basic infrastructure we 're accustomed to here is nonexistent . To assess the damage is going to be a momentous undertaking . '' Complete coverage of the earthquake . Disease is rampant , and it 's still common for children to die from drinking and washing in fecal contaminated water . UNICEF estimates that 70 percent of Haitians do not have access to `` safe drinking water and adequate sanitation . '' Nyvrose Fleurent of Brooklyn , New York , works for the community outreach group Haitian American United Progress and said most Haitian immigrants in the United States have family still on the island . They often financially support family members who are n't able to leave , she said . She said this while watching the news . Earlier in the morning she had hugged her brother good-bye before he flew to Port-au-Prince airport in Haiti . She had no idea the city would be hit by an earthquake . Fleurent , 38 , remains hopeful her family will be unharmed . Her brother and cousins reside in Cap-Haïtien , in the north , on the opposite side of the country from Port-au-Prince , the city closest to the earthquake 's epicenter . Even so , she worried about the impact Tuesday 's 7.0 quake will have on her struggling home country . `` The people who live there can barely make it , '' Fleurent said . `` They ca n't even eat and get money for their basic needs , so this is going to be a big blow for them . I do n't know where Haiti is going to be in the future . It 's already so bad . '' The State Department Operations Center has set up the following number for Americans seeking information about family members in Haiti : 1-888-407-4747 . CNN 's John Blake contributed to this report .
NEW : State Department line for those seeking information about loved ones : 1-888-407-4747 . With phone lines down , Haitians in U.S. fret about loved ones on island . Score: 7 Haiti is most impoverished country in Western Hemisphere , plagued by violence .