At least 60 dead, hundreds injured in fuel tanker explosion in northern Haiti

Images showed bright red and orange flames licking at buildings in the dark night, charred cars and motorcycles on city streets, roofs partially blown off homes and the mangled remains of the tanker capsized in a ditch.

The blast in the port city some 124 miles north of Port-au-Prince caused extensive damage, Prime Minister Ariel Henry said in a tweet. He was headed to the coastal city on Tuesday with other government officials and doctors.

"Three days of national mourning will be decreed throughout the territory, in memory of the victims of this tragedy that the entire Haitian nation is grieving," Henry said in a tweet. "Field hospitals will be quickly deployed in Cap-Haïtien to provide the necessary care to the victims of this terrible explosion."

Officials said that the death toll would probably rise as the true extent of the damage became clearer and issued urgent pleas for medical aid.

"I am dismayed by the tragedy affecting our city," Yvrose Pierre, a mayor of Cap-Haïtien, said in a tweet.

Nelson Deshommes, a spokesman for the mayor's office, said he visited the scene of the explosion early Tuesday morning. First responders were removing corpses, including many burned beyond the point of recognition, he said, putting some into body bags and piling others onto trucks.

"It's sad," Deshommes said. "I could not stay. It's too difficult for me to see what's going on."

Patrick Almonor, one of Cap-Haïtien's three mayors, said the fuel tanker capsized shortly after midnight, spilling gas into a ditch. As locals crowded around to collect some of the gas with containers, the truck exploded, he said. Firefighters arrived with 1,500 gallons of water, but could not extinguish the flames and had to call for aid from airport firefighters.

Almonor said the incident appeared to be an accident and that at least 20 homes had been burned.

"We have critical needs to take care of the burned people and clean the area," he said.

The explosion is the latest tragedy to strike Haiti this year.

The country, saddled by endemic poverty, is being led by an interim government after its president was assassinated in July. A massive, 7.2-magnitude earthquake the next month killed more than 2,000 people and injured scores more. Powerful gangs have stepped in to fill a leadership vacuum, kidnapping Haitians from all walks of life and worsening insecurity. U.S. and Canadian officials have urged their nationals to leave the country.

In recent months, the country had been left virtually paralyzed by a fuel shortage that hit hospitals and schools, which rely on diesel generators for electricity. Many businesses were forced to close, and transportation workers took part in a nationwide strike to protest the crippling shortages.

The growing stranglehold of gangs was in part to blame for the fuel crisis, officials said. Many had hijacked fuel trucks and kidnapped their drivers for ransom or blocked fuel distribution at ports in an attempt to get Henry to resign. Earlier this year, they had blocked the main corridors for convoys bringing aid to victims of the earthquake.

Deshommes said the largest hospital in Cap-Haïtien is no longer operating after it was attacked by armed bandits in November, so victims from the explosion have been sent to other facilities, which lack critical resources. Local media reported that some victims were being cared for in the courtyard of one hospital.

"I did not see an ambulance on-site to take care of burned people," Deshommes said. "I did not see living burned people either."