People carry an injured person in Port-au-Prince after the largest earthquake ever recorded in the area rocked Haiti on Tuesday. (Radio Tele Ginen/Associated Press)

A group of 17 B.C. high school students travelling in Haiti are reported to be safe after arriving in the Caribbean nation three hours before it was struck by a devastating earthquake Tuesday.

The Grade 12 students are from Mount Sentinel School in South Slocan, a town of about 360 people located 800 kilometres east of Vancouver. The students travelled to Haiti to help set up a farm in a local community.

The school's principal, Glen Campbell, said there had not been telephone contact but he has received emails saying everyone was safe.

An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 – capable of causing severe damage and untold casualties in urban areas – hit in the early evening just west of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

Damage is said to be widespread, with at least hundreds feared dead in the impoverished country.