Fireball brings more grief for weary Haiti

With 75 killed, battered nation mourns as gas tanker blast adds to litany of woes

CAP-HAITIEN, Haiti－Haiti entered three days of mourning on Tuesday after a massive gas tanker explosion in the northern city of Cap-Haitien killed dozens of people earlier that day.

The blast is the latest disaster to hit the poverty-stricken Caribbean nation, riven by gang violence and political crisis.

With fuel in short supply across the country, some residents in the country's second-largest city seized the chance to scoop up valuable spilled gasoline when they saw the tanker had overturned.

But then the truck exploded, unleashing a fireball that swept across people and homes, and officials say at least 75 people died. Gas is a rare commodity amid severe fuel shortages caused by the grip of criminal gangs on the capital Portau-Prince.

Early reports indicate that the tanker was trying to avoid an oncoming motorcycle when it veered and flipped.

Onlookers then rushed to the scene with buckets to collect what they could of the tanker's cargo, likely for sale on the black market, as the fuel drained toward a nearby pile of smoldering trash.

Hundreds of people on Tuesday morning remained at the scene of the blast, including shocked neighbors looking for loved ones amid destroyed houses, as well as people attempting to dismantle the charred remains of the truck for scrap metal.

"I am very concerned about the number of people who died," said Justorme Louis Fils, 64, who lives near the scene of the explosion.

Hours after the blast, buildings and overturned vehicles were still smoking as firefighters covered burned bodies in white sheets and loaded them on to the back of a construction truck.

"It's horrible what happened," Patrick Almonor, deputy mayor of Cap-Haitien, said late on Tuesday. "We lost so many lives."

Hospital overwhelmed

Burn victims screamed in agony as they pleaded for help at Justinian University Hospital, the city's largest.

"We don't have the ability to treat the number of seriously burned people," a nurse said. "I'm afraid we won't be able to save them all."

Prime Minister Ariel Henry, himself a physician, visited the hospital as victims bandaged from head to toe were fighting for their lives amid a shortage of medical supplies and health workers in an impoverished nation that has been bombarded by disasters in recent months－riots, a wave of kidnappings, a powerful earthquake that killed more than 2,200 people and the July 7 assassination of the president.

Henry, wearing a biohazard suit, promised more help in the form of field hospitals and a contingent of medical professionals.

"The entire Haitian nation is grieving," Henry said on Twitter while declaring the three days of national mourning. "It is with a torn heart that I see the critical condition of some of our compatriots admitted to this facility."

Haitians for months have been scrambling to find gasoline amid shortages that have shuttered gas stations, sent fuel prices rising and forced businesses to close. Demonstrators took to the streets as recently as Monday to protest against the rise in gasoline prices.

Haiti has never produced enough electricity to meet the needs of its population. Even in well-off parts of the capital, the state-run Haiti electric utility only provides, at most, a few hours of power a day.

The lack of fuel is also hitting water access in a country where many people rely on private companies to deliver water by truck to at-home systems.

And with no guarantee of steady power or running water, healthcare providers have been forced to drastically cut back their services.

The country of more than 11 million people also has been hit by a spike in gang-related kidnappings, including 17 people with a US missionary organization who were abducted in mid-October. Five of them have been released, but a further 12 are still being held.

"It's terrible what our country has to go through," said Dave Larose, a civil engineer who works in Cap-Haitien.

Agencies - Xinhua