Haiti mourns after tanker blast that killed 75
CAP-HAITIEN, Haiti — Nelly Joseph picked through the twisted metal roofing, overturned furnishings and rubble of her charred home Wednesday, unsure of where her dead son had been buried or where she would sleep after blasts from a flipped gas tanker destroyed their house.
Late Monday night, Joseph heard a loud noise and got out of bed. She heard people saying a gas truck had crashed, so she grabbed her identification card and went out to join them. With fuel in short supply all across Haiti, some neighbors in the northern city of Cap-Haitien saw a chance to scoop up valuable spilled gasoline.
Then the first explosions occurred. Her son Josue Junior Julemis, 36, hustled two of his children to safety. Then he returned to get his identification card from their home.
That’s when a much stronger explosion destroyed the threeroom house they shared, blackening its walls and blowing off the roof.
Joseph’s son was burned over his face and body, she said. He died at the hospital. His wife and 14-year-old daughter also were burned and hospitalized.
The city buried his body in a mass grave, but Joseph doesn’t know where.
He was one of at least 75 people killed in the explosion, said JeanHenri Petit, coordinator of the civil protection agency.
“He was a great guy,” Joseph said through tears. “Whenever I’m sick he pays for me at the hospital. Now he is gone, if I die I don’t have anyone to bury me.”
On Wednesday, residents continued to pick through charred vehicles and buildings adjacent to the tanker truck’s skeleton.
The explosion battered the concrete three-story facade of the building that separated Joseph’s home from the street. One side had housed a small shop selling soft drinks, the other housed a business selling cement for construction.
Early reports indicate that the tanker was trying to avoid an oncoming motorcycle when it veered and flipped early Tuesday.
“The entire Haitian nation is grieving,” Prime Minister Ariel Henry said on Twitter while declaring three days of national mourning. “It is with a torn heart that I see the critical condition of some of our compatriots admitted to this facility.”