At least 20 people were killed and nearly 80 others injured when a fuel tank exploded in northern Lebanon Sunday, burning crowds clamouring for gasoline in the crisis-hit country.
The tragedy overwhelmed medical facilities and spurred a search for the missing, heaping new misery on a nation already beset by an economic crisis and severe fuel shortages that have crippled hospitals and caused long power cuts.
Taking to Twitter, the Lebanese Red Cross said their teams have transported 20 dead bodies … from the fuel tanker explosion adding that 79 other people were injured during the blast, which took place in al-Talil in the northern region of Akkar.
The official National News Agency said that a container of fuel that the army had confiscated, part of an effort to stop suppliers from hoarding amid the shortages, had exploded.
It said the blast followed scuffles between “residents that gathered around the container to fill up gasoline” overnight.
George Kettaneh of the Lebanese Red Cross told local media that first responders received reports of an explosion shortly before 2:00am (2300 GMT).
He warned that the tragedy will pile pressure on the burns centre at Geitawi hospital in Beirut, and the country’s other specialist facility, in the northern city of Tripoli.
Lebanon, hit by a financial crisis branded by the World Bank as one of the planet’s worst since the 1850s, has been grappling with soaring poverty, a plummeting currency and dire fuel shortages.
The Lebanese army on Saturday said it seized thousands of litres of gasoline and diesel that distributors were stockpiling at stations across the country.
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