Haitian authorities continued Wednesday to evacuate victims of a fuel tanker explosion in the country’s second-largest city that so far has claimed 66 lives, including four people who died at a public hospital after suffering severe burns.
Patrick Almonor, deputy mayor of Cap-Haïtien, told the Miami Herald that as of late Tuesday, local officials had confirmed the deaths of 62 people in the blast, along with another four who died at the city’s largest public hospital, Justinien, from their injuries. The blast also destroyed at least 42 homes, he said.
The tanker explosion occurred shortly after midnight Monday in the Semarie district at the eastern entrance of Cap-Haïtien. The tanker had just crossed the bridge in the La Fossette neighborhood and was trying to avoid hitting a motorcycle and overturned.
After the accident, onlookers went to the scene and began scooping up the fuel in buckets and containers, several people reported. But it’s still unclear what led to the blast. Some have suggested that the fuel spilled into a smoldering heap of trash, while others said it occurred because of the pillaging of the tanker.
Jerry Chandler, the head of the country’s Office of Civil Protection, said his team of disaster responders plans to make the rounds at local hospitals to update the number of deaths as well as injuries, which numbered more than 40, as his agency continues to help with medical evacuations of those with serious burns. Field hospitals, designated for the northern city, were also en route from Port-au-Prince to help relieve the pressure the explosion created on medical services.
Chandler said a damage assessment in ongoing to determine how many homes and businesses were engulfed by the flames, which has left families who already had little with even less.
But the biggest worry is the people who survived but were were burned by the blast.
“Our biggest concern is that a lot of those who were burned are in serious condition, and we could have more deaths in the coming days,” Dr. Laure Adrien, director general of the health ministry, told the Herald.
This was evident Tuesday as the physician joined Interim Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who is also a doctor, in touring Justinien University Hospital. Bandaged victims crowded the floor of the hospital as doctors and nurses faced a shortage of supplies, and a scene of panic unfolded in the courtyard among dismayed family members.
“I am sad and overwhelmed by this tragedy,” Henry told the Herald afterward. “This considerable loss of human life and all this pain is the result of people living in misery and in a precarious situation. The lack of education has resulted in people exposing themselves to danger.”
The gas explosion is the latest catastrophe to hit Haiti, which since the July 7 assassination of its president, Jovenel Moïse, has moved from one crisis to another. Five weeks after the president’s still unsolved murder, the southern peninsula was hit by a deadly 7.2 magnitude earthquake, killing at least 2,248 people injuring 12,763.
Thousands of Haitians, displaced from their homes at the southern entrance of Port-au-Prince by warring gangs, continue to be homeless. Gangs have also aggravated an ongoing fuel crisis by blocking tanker access to the two ports in the capital where deliveries are made. The country is also seeing a surge in for-ransom kidnappings that in October led to the abductions of 17 missionaries from a U.S.-based religious charity, Christian Aid Ministries. Nearly two months later, 12 remain in captivity after the gang 400 Mawozo released five.
Reflecting on all of the challenges, Monsignor Launay Saturné of the Archidiocese of Cap-Haïtien called on Haitians to pray over the next three days beginning Thursday. Haiti’s government has announced a three-day national mourning period.
“This situation brings great distress and tears to many families who are already living in dire straits. Oh dear, when will this people cease to suffer?” Saturné said in a statement. “We need to look at the dire situation we are living in today to make the right decisions, especially to educate our people about how to deal with such situations....
“We hope that the wounded will be given proper care, that the dead will be buried with dignity and that proper cleansing will be done in this area to protect the health of the living.”
