By Harold Isaac and Steven Aristil
PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) -A fuel truck explosion on a road in Haiti's southern peninsula on Saturday killed 24 people and left half of the 40 injured survivors with third-degree burns, the government said.
Haiti Prime Minister Garry Conille visited the site, near the coastal city of Miragoane in the department of Nippes, and said some of the most seriously injured victims were evacuated by helicopter to receive specialized care.
Ambulances were also being sent as quickly as possible to attend to others with severe burns and to relieve overcrowded local hospitals.
"It's a horrible scene we've just lived through. Many dozens of victims, wounded, severely burned," Conille said in a video distributed by the government.
The injured were mostly men, as well as three women and a child, according to a report from Haiti's emergency services, which did not give any details about the identities of the dead.
Another 15 people sustained second-degree burns, the report said.
A witness to the incident said the truck's gas tank had been punctured by another vehicle, and people had rushed to the site to collect fuel.
"There were a lot of people. Those who were close to the truck got pulverized," the man, who did not give his name, said in a video interview with local outlet Echo Haiti Media.
A similar incident in 2021 in the city of Cap-Haitien killed at least 60 people, after people were also thought to have been attempting to take fuel from a tanker truck.
Fuel deliveries to the Miragoane area have slowed in recent weeks as trucks were transported via ferry to avoid gang-controlled highways surrounding the capital of Port-au-Prince.
The spread of gangs in the capital and surrounding areas has fueled a humanitarian crisis with mass displacements, sexual violence, child recruitment and widespread hunger. A state of emergency is now in place nationwide.
Haiti's civil protection agency reported the identities of a 31-year-old man and two 23-year-old men who suffered burns over 89% of their bodies, and were being treated in a hospital in Les Cayes, in southern Haiti.