Deadly fireball deals Haiti more pain

With fuel in short supply across Haiti, people in the northern city of Cap-Haitien saw the crash of a tanker truck as a chance to scoop up spilled gasoline. But the truck exploded, unleashing a fireball that swept across people and homes, killing at least 75.

It seemed the tanker driver was trying to avoid a motorcyclist when the truck flipped on Tuesday. Onlookers rushed to the scene with buckets to collect gasoline as fuel drained toward a nearby pile of smoldering trash.

Abraham Joanis, 61, carrying a guitar rescued from the charred remains of his home, recounted: "It was after midnight and one of my boys told me a gasoline truck had exploded."

By then, hours after the blast, buildings and overturned vehicles still smoked as firefighters covered bodies in sheets and loaded them on a truck.

Burns victims screamed in agony at Justinian University Hospital.

Prime Minister Ariel Henry, himself a physician, visited there as bandage-encased victims suffered amid a shortage of health workers and medical supplies in an impoverished nation of 11 million that has been bombarded by disasters in recent months: riots, a wave of kidnappings, an earthquake that killed more than 2,200 people and the July 7 assassination of the president.

Henry sought to console a man on the hospital's floor because of a lack of beds.

He promised more help in the form of field hospitals and a contingent of medical professionals.

But minutes after he left the facility five more people died and about 15 victims were taken by air to hospitals in the capital, Port-au-Prince.

Haitians for months have been scrambling to find gasoline amid shortages that have shuttered filling stations, seen fuel prices soaring and forced businesses to close.

ASSOCIATED PRESS