At least 24 people were killed and about 40 injured – some with very serious burns – in the explosion of a fuel tanker in Haiti, according to the latest Civil Protection report in the Caribbean country.

The explosion occurred as a crowd tried to collect fuel leaking from the tank of a truck that had been stopped due to a traffic accident in the Miragoan region, 100 kilometers west of the capital Port-au-Prince.

Identification of the dead is difficult as the bodies were charred. “There was a lot of people. Those who were near the truck were charred,” said an eyewitness.

Fuel deliveries to the wider region had been reduced in recent weeks as tankers were ferried to avoid arterial roads controlled by armed gangs.

In a similar incident that occurred in 2021 in Haiti, about 60 people were killed by an explosion that occurred when bystanders tried to collect fuel leaking from a tanker that had overturned on a street in the city of Cap-Haitien.