Tuesday, December 14 at around 12:30 a.m., a tanker truck loaded with fuel overturned under circumstances not yet clarified, at the eastern entrance to Cap-Haitien between rooundabout Samari and Pont Grand-Bois.

It was when local residents rushed to retrieve the precious fuel that the truck exploded. Several dozen people were instantly charred in the gigantic fireball, and dozens more were burnt to varying degrees.

The fire spread, setting fire to vehicles, motorcycles and some thirty houses in an atmosphere of total panic...

The city’s hospitals are overwhelmed with wounded people, most of them being treated in courtyards for lack of space. The Justinien Hospital and the Haitian Baptist Convention Hospital among others are overcrowded and lacking intrans. Doctors and local and national authorities are calling for help.

The town hall is unable for the moment to establish a precise toll of this tragedy, at least 40 charred bodies have been recorded, but have yet to know the exact number of injured and the toll of people injured or dead in the burned houses

The firefighters and reinforcements followed each other for several hours to try to contain the fire...

In the early hours of the morning the city was in shock, struggling to realize the scale of the disaster.

Reacting to this terrible tragedy, the Prime Minister ai Ariel Henry declared "I learned, with desolation and emotion, the sad news of the explosion, last night, in Cap-Haitien, of a tank truck which was transporting gasoline and which caused, according to a partial report, around forty deaths, dozens of wounded, as well as significant material damage" adding "Three days of national mourning will be decreed throughout the territory, in memory victims of this tragedy which mourns the entire Haitian nation. Field hospitals will be quickly deployed in Cap-Haitien to provide necessary care to the victims of this terrible explosion."

SL/ TB/ HaitiLibre