PORT-AU-PRINCE (Agencies) - Hundreds of thousands of people were feared dead in a deadly earthquake that destroyed the presidential palace, schools, hospitals and hillside shanties in Haiti, the countrys Prime Minister said on Wednesday. A five-story UN headquarters building was also brought down by Tuesdays 7.0 magnitude quake, which the US Geological Survey said was the most powerful in Haiti in over 200 years. Many casualties were feared in the UN building. However death of at least 15 UN peacekeepers was confirmed. According to a private TV channel, a spokesman for the Pakistan Rangers Sindh said all the officials and soldiers from the Pakistan Rangers deployed on UN peace mission in Haiti were safe. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Hedi Annabi, the Tunisian head of UN peacekeepers in Haiti, and all those around him are believed dead. UN officials, meanwhile, said more than 100 employees of the UN mission were unaccounted. Among the missing were the chief of the UN mission in Haiti and the agencys deputy special representative, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told reporters in New York. The quakes epicentre was only 16km from Port-au-Prince. The quake hit at 5:00pm (10pm British time), and witnesses reported people screaming Jesus, Jesus running into the streets as offices, hotels, houses and shops collapsed. Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told CNN said several hundred thousand people might have died in the earthquake. Haitian President Rene Preval called the damage unimaginable and told The Miami Herald he believed tens of thousands were dead in the rubble across the impoverished capital. The archbishop of Port-au-Prince, Monsignor Joseph Serge Miot, was also found dead in the wreckage of the archdiocese office. Rescuers dug with bare hands to reach victims trapped in the ruins of the Haitian capital Wednesday. Tens of thousand were also injured and missing. A devastated President Preval appealed for help for his impoverished Caribbean nation after the powerful quake struck Tuesday. Television footage from Port-au-Prince showed scenes of chaos on the streets with people sobbing and appearing dazed amid the rubble. Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed, he told the Miami Herald, estimating the number of dead in tens of thousands. Cries from the victims still pinned under debris could be heard as powerful aftershocks rattled the poorest country in the Americas, which lacks the heavy equipment needed to dig through ruins. The presidential palace lay in ruins, its domes fell on top of flattened walls. Preval and his wife were not inside when the quake hit. The temblor toppled a major hotel where 200 tourists were missing and the headquarters of the UN mission in Haiti where up to 250 personnel were unaccounted for. The devastating earthquake also killed at least 15 peacekeepers with the Brazilian-led UN mission in Haiti, officials said. At least 11 Brazilian soldiers, three Jordanian soldiers and one Argentine gendarme were killed, military officials from the three countries said. Seven Brazilian soldiers and another Argentine gendarme were missing. Eight Chinese members of the peacekeeping mission were also buried in building collapses, according to Chinas State Council. It did not say whether they were believed to be alive or dead. The Red Cross said up to three million people are affected. About 4m people live in the city and surrounding area. Many people slept outside on the ground, away from weakened walls, as aftershocks as powerful as 5.9 rattled the city throughout the night and into Wednesday. UN officials said normal communications had been cut off and the only way to talk with people on the ground was via satellite phone. Roads were blocked by rubble. Taiwans ambassador to Haiti has been injured in the powerful earthquake in the impoverished Caribbean nation where hundreds of people are feared dead, the Taiwanese Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.