About this picture: Caribbean Plate
The quake occurred in the vicinity of the northern boundary where the Caribbean tectonic plate shifts eastwards by about 20 mm per year relative to the North American plate.
The strike-slip fault system in the region has two branches in Haiti, the Septentrional fault in the north and the Enriquillo-Plaintain Garden fault in the south; seismic data suggests that the January 2010 quake was on the Enriquillo-Plaintain Garden fault, which had been locked solid for 250 years, gathering stress.
The stress would ultimately have been relieved either by a large earthquake or a series of smaller ones. It is reported that the surface along the fault may have been offset in places by a meter or so.
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