Emergency teams worked to provide relief in Haiti on Sunday after a magnitude 5.9 earthquake killed 11 people and left 135 injured.

The country's civil protection agency said that at least seven people died in the coastal city of Port-de-Paix and three people died in the nearby community of Gros-Morne in the province of Artibonite. It said that the injured were being treated at medical centers in the northern part of the country.

Secretary of State for Communications Eddy Jackson Alexis said a preliminary report indicated that 11 people had died.

"I feel like my life is not safe here," said nun Maryse Alsaint, director of the San Gabriel National School in Gros-Morne, where several classrooms were severely damaged.

She said that about 500 students would not be able to return to school on Monday.

The quake, which was felt across the country, struck at 8:10 pm (0010 GMT Sunday) at a shallow depth of 11.7 kilometers.

Haiti's civil protection agency said two minor aftershocks were registered, adding that no tsunami warning was issued in connection with the quake activity.

The tremor rattled the capital Port-de-Prince, sparking emotion among residents still reeling from the massive 2010 earthquake that left at least 200,000 people dead and 300,000 more wounded.

"I urge the population to remain calm," President Jovenel Moise said on Twitter, adding that local and regional authorities were assisting those in need and that some damage had been reported.

Prime Minister Jean-Henry Ceant is heading up an inter-ministerial disaster response task force, he said on Twitter.

"The injured are being treated at area hospitals," the civil protection agency said late Saturday, noting that some of the injuries were sustained when people panicked after the quake.

The Nord-Ouest department is the poorest part of impoverished Haiti, with many isolated areas due to the dire state of the roads.

The devastating 7.0-magnitude quake in January 2010 left more than 1.5 people homeless. Tens of thousands remain in makeshift camps.

The damage caused was worth an estimated 120 percent of GDP in Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere.

Longer-term reconstruction has been hampered by lingering political chaos in the nation of nearly 11 million people, and by a deadly cholera epidemic introduced by infected Nepalese UN peacekeepers sent in after the quake.