Haiti was rattled by a 4.7-magnitude aftershock, 12 days after it was devastated by a powerful 7.0 earthquake, the US Geological Survey and local residents have said.

"I felt a shake, it was brief, just a few seconds," Patrice Dumont, a school teacher from the ruined town of Leogane 17 km west of Port-au-Prince, said. "I heard a sound like a grumbling, then a drumbeat, as if something wanted to burst from the belly of the earth," he added.