More than 60 killed as petrol tanker explodes in Haiti

More than 60 people were killed and scores more were wounded around midnight on Tuesday when a truck carrying gasoline exploded in northern Haiti, according to officials.

The truck, carrying 9,000 gallons of fuel, swerved and toppled over in a residential area of the city of Cap-Haïtien, according to local officials and witnesses. A crowd gathered to siphon off its gas and it exploded, scorching everything in a hundred-yard radius, said Frandy Jean, the head of firefighters for northern Haiti.

“It’s the first time since I’ve been a firefighter, in over 17 years, that I have lived such a catastrophe,” Mr. Jean, 49, said.

The office of the mayor of Cap-Haïtien said on Twitter that more than 60 people had been killed and hundreds burned or injured in the blast. A photo shared by the office showed the ashen remnants of the fuel truck, with several buildings in the surrounding area charred and burned.

“I am distraught at the tragedy affecting our city,” said the mayor of Cap-Haïtien, Yvrose Pierre, on Twitter. “All my thoughts are with the victims and all their loved ones in these tragic times.”

Patrick Almonor, the city’s deputy mayor, said that around 20 houses in the area were set on fire by the explosion and that the number of casualties released so far did not include those who may have died inside their homes, local media reported.

Haiti’s electrical grid is unreliable, so everyone — residents, but also banks, hospitals and businesses — relies on generators for power. But the country has been enduring a severe fuel crisis over the last few months, as the gangs that control access to fuel terminals have blocked deliveries.

HiThis has left Haitians desperate for fuel, witnesses said, and willing to risk approaching the downed truck to collect gas.

Videos and photos shared on social media showed flames erupting and black smoke billowing into the air above what appeared to be the charred carcass of a truck.

Prime Minister Ariel Henry, writing on Twitter, confirmed that the explosion and resulting fire had killed and injured scores of people. He said medical teams were being dispatched to the site, and declared three days of mourning.

The two major hospitals in the area were both overwhelmed by dozens of people needing help, hospital officials said, and were asking from help from other hospitals and the public because they lack even the most basic supplies, such as sheets, to attend the wounded.

The injured included burn victims, officials said, and those who were trampled as people fled the scene.

The country’s services, long in a state of disrepair, have been battered as Haiti has been rocked by cascading tragedies.

Since July, when President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated, the Caribbean island nation has suffered a devastating earthquake and flash floods, disasters that left over 2,000 dead and many more injured and displaced.

The natural disasters have been compounded by poverty, hunger and increasing violence.

In recent months, a severe fuel shortage pushed the nation even deeper into collapse. Gangs, not the government, now control large areas of the country, and they have taken advantage of the need for fuel, hijacking gas trucks at will and blocking deliveries. Many truck drivers refused to work in October, in a nationwide strike that paralyzed the country.

Former Prime Minister Claude Joseph, who briefly took control of Haiti’s government immediately after the assassination, said he was heartbroken by the news of the explosion.

“I share the pain and sorrow of all the people,” he wrote on Twitter. (New York Times)