(Port-au-Prince) Twenty-four people were killed on Saturday, and around forty others injured, some of them very seriously burned, in the explosion of a tanker truck in Haiti, the Civil Protection of this Caribbean country partly under the control of armed gangs announced to AFP.
The explosion occurred, according to witnesses, as the victims were trying to collect fuel leaking from the crashed tanker truck in the Miragoâne district in the southwest of the country.
Acting Prime Minister Garry Conille called an emergency meeting following the tragedy, Emmanuel Pierre, the national head of Civil Protection, told AFP.
According to the Haitian official, other charred bodies were discovered in the evening near the site of the explosion, bringing the death toll from 16 to 24.
Around forty people were injured, half of them very seriously.
Nineteen are major burn victims, who were to be transferred to specialist hospitals in the capital Port-au-Prince on a flight co-organized by the Ministry of Public Health and the NGO Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
But only six could be evacuated on Saturday evening, Mr Pierre said.
The others, 80% burned, are untransportable and must be treated on site, at the Sainte Thérèse hospital in Miragoâne. This is a port city located about a hundred kilometers from Port-au-Prince.
On September 5, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stressed the need for Haitian officials to move quickly toward elections, during a rare visit under very high security to this country in deep multidimensional crisis and ravaged by gang violence.
He had announced a new tranche of humanitarian aid of 45 million dollars for Haiti, urging other countries to contribute to the financing of the international force expected for months in the country.