Port-au-Prince - A small earthquake struck northern Haiti, collapsing an apartment building and killing at least three people, a UN spokesman said.

Residents said the tremor struck Haiti's second-largest city of Cap-Haitien shortly after midnight yesterday, collapsing the four-story building. Some nearby structures were damaged by the collapse but no other quake effects were reported.

Three survivors were pulled out of the rubble and taken to a hospital, UN spokesman Louicius Euguene said.

Haitian police, civil protection authorities and UN peacekeepers from Chile and Nepal found the body of another person killed inside.

Cap-Haitien lies along the fault line that produced three moderate earthquakes in nearby Cuba on Saturday. It was not affected by the Jan. 12 earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince, some 130 kilometres to the south.

Witnesses said it had been raining, which could have weakened the ground under the structure.