An explosion involving a fuel truck on a highway in Haiti's southern peninsula on Saturday killed 24 people and left half of the 40 survivors injured with third-degree burns, the government said.
Haitian Prime Minister Garry Conille visited the site near the coastal town of Miragoane in Nippes department and said some of the most seriously injured victims had been evacuated by helicopter for specialist care.
Ambulances were also being dispatched as quickly as possible to treat other people with serious burns and to relieve overcrowding at local hospitals.
“It's a horrible scene that we have just experienced. Several dozen victims, injured, seriously burned,” said Conille in a video released by the government.
The injured were mostly men, along with three women and a child, according to a report by Haiti's emergency services, which gave no details on the identities of the dead.
Another 15 people suffered second-degree burns, the report said.
A witness to the incident said the truck's gas tank had been punctured by another vehicle and people had rushed to the spot to collect fuel.
“There were a lot of people. Those who were close to the truck were pulverized,” said the man, who did not give his name, in a video interview with a local media outlet. Echo Haiti Media.
A similar incident in 2021 in the city of Cap-Haitien killed at least 60 people, after it was thought that other people were also trying to siphon fuel from a tanker truck.
Fuel deliveries to the Miragoane area have slowed in recent weeks as trucks were transported by ferry to avoid gang-controlled roads surrounding the capital, Port-au-Prince.
The proliferation of gangs in and around the capital has fuelled a humanitarian crisis with mass displacement, sexual violence, child recruitment and widespread starvation. A state of emergency has now been declared across the country.
Haiti's civil protection agency said the identities of a 31-year-old man and two 23-year-old men who suffered burns over 89 percent of their bodies and were being treated at a hospital in Les Cayes, southern Haiti.
