Over 60 people die in Haiti as fuel truck explodes

Amidst the carnage and injury, authorities are said to be requesting for additional supplies and staff to ensure the victims are out of harm’s way. 

According to local officials, the explosion happened after midnight on Tuesday in Cap-Haitien located on the country’s northern coast.

It was a grisly scene as survivors were rushed to receive care as the fire consumed much of the neighborhood in which it occurred. 

“We have now counted 60 deaths,” said Deputy Mayor Patrick Almonor as official searched the smoldering ruins and charred debris for survivors.  

According to deputy Mayor Almonor, the truck driver seemed to have lost control as he swerved to avoid ramming into a motorcycle taxi. 

As he turned this way and that, the fuel tanker flipped over. Then the fuel from the tanker spilled onto the road and many onlookers rushed forward to get it. 

That’s when all hell broke loose. 

“It was after midnight and I heard a loud noise so I asked one of my boys to go and look. He told me a gasoline truck exploded,” said Abraham Joanis, 61. 

“Right away, I left with my family, and I headed the other way to the bridge,” he added.

Others were not so circumspect, or lucky as over 100 people were reportedly injured in the explosion.

The fire raged on to burn about 20 homes nearby, said deputy Mayor Almonor.

Ominously, he said that the number of deaths is expected to keep rising as people who died in their homes have not yet been counted amongst the dead. 

“It’s horrible what happened,” the deputy Mayor said. “We lost so many lives.”

Against this macabre setting of death and destruction, there have been widespread fuel shortages and spiralling gas prices. 

This partly explains why many people rushed to harvest the fuel which had spilled from the tanker.

Fuel shortages have been associated with armed gangs setting up blockades at fuel terminals in the capital, Port-au-Prince. 

Gang violence and political instability have rocked Haiti since July, after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise.

Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry was understandably distraught by what happened. 

“Three days of national mourning will be decreed throughout the territory, in memory of the victims of this tragedy that has devastated the entire Haitian nation,” Henry wrote on Twitter.