To cope with the disaster and the influx of wounded in the care centers, a temporary structure was installed in the gymnasium of Cap-Haitien.
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The toll of the explosion of a tanker truck in Haiti on Tuesday grew heavier the day after the disaster. “Our latest situation report shows 75 dead, 47 serious burns and 12 minor burns” who are hospitalized across the country, said Jerry Chandler, director of Haitian civil protection. The latest report reported 62 dead.
On the night of Monday to Tuesday, in Cap-Haitien, the driver of the tanker would have tried to avoid a collision with a taxi-motorcycle, then losing control of his vehicle which overturned. As the country suffers a severe fuel shortage due to gang stranglehold on part of the fueling circuit, “members of the civilian population took the opportunity to collect fuel by filling makeshift containers, which is the basis of a terrible explosion”, he explained.
As of Tuesday, about twenty wounded were transferred to hospitals across the country, including that of the organization Médecins sans frontières in Port-au-Prince, the only structure in Haiti specializing in the care of severe burns. “We have operated all night and, for the moment, our 12 patients are stable”, Jean Gilbert Ndong, MSF medical coordinator, said Wednesday morning. “We are still expecting a dozen patients today who were sorted by an MSF team, which went to Cape Town yesterday. The team is made up of a surgeon specializing in burns, an anesthetist and a nurse”, he clarified.
To cope with the disaster and the influx of wounded in the care centers, a temporary structure was installed in the gymnasium of Cap-Haitien. “We are currently working hard to strengthen local health structures: our field hospital is at the end of its installation and we are planning 7 to 10 days of operation”, declared the director of Haitian civil protection. This country establishment will function in particular thanks to the material support of the World Health Organization and to the personnel mobilized by the Haitian Ministry of Health, according to the details provided by Jerry Chandler.