Tanker Explosion, Dozens Feared Dead

Tanker Explosion, Dozens Feared Dead

A tanker truck carrying gasoline overturned and exploded in a massive fireball around midnight on December 13th, leaving more than 50 people dead and dozens injured.

The explosion occurred late on Monday evening in the coastal city of Cap-Haitien, in northern Haiti, and quickly began to engulf cars and homes in the surrounding area.

Survivors rushed out of their homes, overwhelming the local hospital, which is now begging for basic supplies and more medical staff.

“We need human resources, and also material resources, namely, serum, gauze, and anything that can be used in case of serious burns,” Mayor Pierre Yvrose said in a Reuters report.

The incident occurs as Haiti is struggling with a severe fuel shortage and spiraling gas prices that have forced shut downs of schools and businesses, hospitals to turn away patients, and temporary shut downs of gas stations.

Soon after the explosion, while dozens of bodies were still lying in the street, Haitians were seen using buckets to scoop up gasoline from the tanker truck and the street to take back to their homes, according to a statement given to The Associated Press by Dave Larose, a civil engineer who works in Cap-Haitien.

“It’s terrible what our country has to go through,” Larose said.

According to Patrick Almonor, the deputy mayor of Cap-Haitien, the truck may have overturned while trying to avoid hitting a motorcycle.

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

Claude Joseph, Haiti’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Worship, shared his condolences in a post on Twitter.

“I share the pain and sorrow of all the people,” he wrote.

Haiti has declared three days of mourning in honor of those killed in the explosion.

“Three days of national mourning will be decreed throughout the territory, in memory of the victims of this tragedy that the entire Haitian nation is grieving,” Prime Minister Ariel Henry tweeted.

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