By Harold Isaac and Steven Aristil

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) -A gasoline truck explosion on a street in Haiti’s southern peninsula on Saturday killed 24 folks and left half of the 40 injured survivors with third-degree burns, the federal government mentioned.

Haiti Prime Minister Garry Conille visited the location, close to the coastal metropolis of Miragoane within the division of Nippes, and mentioned among the most critically injured victims had been evacuated by helicopter to obtain specialised care.

Ambulances had been additionally being despatched as rapidly as doable to take care of others with extreme burns and to alleviate overcrowded native hospitals.

“It’s a horrible scene we’ve just lived through. Many dozens of victims, wounded, severely burned,” Conille mentioned in a video distributed by the federal government.

The injured had been principally males, in addition to three girls and a toddler, based on a report from Haiti’s emergency providers, which didn’t give any particulars in regards to the identities of the useless.

One other 15 folks sustained second-degree burns, the report mentioned.

A witness to the incident mentioned the truck’s fuel tank had been punctured by one other car, and folks had rushed to the location to gather gasoline.

“There were a lot of people. Those who were close to the truck got pulverized,” the person, who didn’t give his title, mentioned in a video interview with native outlet Echo Haiti Media.

An identical incident in 2021 within the metropolis of Cap-Haitien killed at the very least 60 folks, after folks had been additionally thought to have been making an attempt to take gasoline from a tanker truck.

Gas deliveries to the Miragoane space have slowed in current weeks as vans had been transported through ferry to keep away from gang-controlled highways surrounding the capital of Port-au-Prince.

The unfold of gangs within the capital and surrounding areas has fueled a humanitarian disaster with mass displacements, sexual violence, little one recruitment and widespread starvation. A state of emergency is now in place nationwide.

Haiti’s civil safety company reported the identities of a 31-year-old man and two 23-year-old males who suffered burns over 89% of their our bodies, and had been being handled in a hospital in Les Cayes, in southern Haiti.