Buenos Aires, 14 December 2021 (dpa/MIA) - At least 60 people are dead after a petrol tanker truck exploded in the Haitian city of Cap-Haitien, Deputy Mayor Patrick Almonor told radio broadcaster RFM on Tuesday. Prime Minister Ariel Henry also tweeted, saying he was full of "grief and horror" as he shared the news of the blast, which occurred late Monday, and ordered three days of official mourning. The newspaper Le Nouvelliste noted that numerous others were severely wounded and that many hospitals were already overwhelmed with the number of patients they had so far. There are plans to set up field hospitals. The tanker apparently overturned following an accident, spilling fuel. That prompted people to race to the scene in an attempt to steal petrol, after which the fuel ignited and the lorry exploded. Henry also mentioned significant property damage in his tweet. According to Le Nouvelliste, 20 houses burned to the ground after the explosion. "The city is in shock, the people are in panic and now we're coming to grips with the breadth of the destruction. A lot of the injured and the burned are being brought to hospital. It's dramatic," said one witness, quoted by the HPN news agency. Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas and is coming to the end of a rough year that saw a major earthquake and a presidential assassination. Further complicating its problems are massive fuel shortages, which are worsened by endemic corruption and criminal gangs that control large swathes of the land around Port-au-Prince, the capital.