Haiti fuel tanker explosion kills more than 15 and 40 others seriously injured, transported by the United Nations helicopter to the Saint Boniface hospital to receive immediate specialized care. Image: Africanews
(The Post News)- In Haiti’s southern port city of Miragoane, a tanker truck transporting gasoline overturned and exploded, killing more than 15 people and leaving the other 40 seriously injured with third-degree burns. A UN helicopter was used to transport them to the Saint Boniface hospital, east of Les Cayes, for immediate treatment.
Garry Conille, Haiti Prime Minister, visited the scene of the explosion in south Haiti near the coastal city of Miragoane in the department of Nippes, ensuring that every seriously injured victim will be evacuated by air to receive specialised care. “It is a horrible scene we’ve just lived through, with dozens of victims wounded and severely burnt, many of whom would have been evacuated to the town of Les Cayes,” Conille expressed in a video circulated by the government.
To relieve overcrowded local hospitals, ambulances were sent to the accident scene as quickly as possible to treat others with severe burns and injuries. According to the report from Haiti’s emergency services, the injured were mostly men, as well as three women and a child, and identity details of the deceased are not yet disclosed by the emergency services. The national head of civil protection, Emmanuel Pierre, told the AFP news agency that seriously injured victims would be treated at other hospitals in the region.
An unnamed witness to the fuel explosion stated that the truck’s gas tank had been destroyed by another vehicle, and people rushed to the scene to collect fuel. “There were a lot of people; those who were close to the truck got pulverised,” said the witness in an interview with Echo Haiti Media. The nation of 12 million people in Haiti has also been struggling with fuel shortages as fights between gangs make it more challenging to import and export goods in the country.
In 2021, dozens of civilians were killed in a similar incident when the truck flipped while trying to avoid a motorcycle in the northern city of Cap-Haitien. To avoid gang-controlled highways surrounding Port-au-Prince, fuel deliveries to the Miragoane area have slowed in recent weeks as trucks were transported via ferry.
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