2010 Haiti earthquake, tectonic plates. Diagram and map of the tectonic plates of Central America, showing the Haiti earthquake (concentric circles, upper right). This magnitude 7.0 earthquake occurred at 16:53 local time on 12 January 2010, and is thought to have killed between 100,000 and 200,000 people. The earthquake occurred on the boundary between the Caribbean plate and the North American plate. The yellow arrows show plate movements, the black lines and red arrows show relative movement at plate boundaries, and the red lines show subduction zones. For more details, see C004/2716.