A school building collapsed Friday near Haitian capital Port-au-Prince and several casualties were feared, Red Cross officials involved in rescue efforts said.
The children were in their classrooms at the time of the collapse in Petionville, just outside the capital, Michaele Gedeon, president of Haiti's Red Cross told CNN. "The whole school collapsed on the kids," she said.
The cause of the collapse was not known.
Officials couldn't say how many children were in their classes, but there are about 700 students in the school, all between the ages of 10 to 20 years.
"We are having difficulty removing students from the rubble because we don't have heavy duty search-and-rescue equipment," said Alex Claudon, also of the Red Cross. He said the number of casualties could be very high.
Gedeon wasn't at the site, but said she could hear rescuers calming down injured students as she coordinated emergency efforts over the phone.
"On the phone you can hear so many children crying ... and saying, 'This one is dead, that one is dead'," Gedeon told CNN.