29 Die in crash of a truck in Haiti

At least 29 people were killed and 56 were injured in an accident in a truck which was left without brakes night in Port-au-Prince, said yesterday the head of Civil protection in the West, Nadia Lochard.

The event occurred about 22: 00 local time Monday (03.46 GMT Tuesday), when the truck crashed into several houses and steamrolled people and vehicles, as they told witnesses.

The truck was incorporated into the Delmas Avenue at the height of the Delmas 40 exit and passing struck small traders, mototaxi drivers and pedestrians, to stop at the height of Delmas 33, next to the headquarters of the national television of Haiti.

He also hit two vehicles that were destroyed, according to the witnesses.

The injured were taken to the hospital de La Paix (peace) in Delmas 33; to doctors without borders hospital located in the Northern periphery; the Haiti State University Hospital (in the Centre of) u000a(Port-au-Prince) and the Hospital of the Office of insurance for work accidents, illness and maternity.

The Prime Minister, Garry Conille, said yesterday the vision 2000 station the size of the tragedy surpassed the capacity of the State's response Haitian in a situation of urgency.

Said that he saw this in the room of urgency of the Hospital of the University of State of Haiti, who visited and place that was filled with injuries. Also indicated that the State has no means sufficient to be able to intervene in situations like this and emergency teams displaced people to the place they spent much time to rescue people trapped under the truck.

In his opinion, several people could have been saved if the intervention had been much more rapid.

In both, the President of the Association of owners and drivers of Haiti (ACPH), Changeux Méhu, attributed the accident to the lack of "responsibilities" u000aof the authorities. In statements to local media Méhu deplored the fact that traffic accidents "kill more than firearms" in Haiti, the poorest country in America.

"National"
"the problem is national, held, at the time noted that"we pay too many taxes"that does not respect the rules of transit.

Also, the head of the UN Mission for the stabilization of Haiti (Minustah), Mariano Fernández, expressed his "sadness" by the tragic accident at the time which indicated that Brazilian peacekeepers attended the tasks of relief.

Fernandez said it requested medical personnel of the mission to support the authorities of health to assist the wounded.

Hospital of doctors without borders in Drouillard (Northern periphery) there are several injured, said the Organization, are out of danger. The NGO stated that vehicle accidents constitute the first u000a"source of patients" in units of urgency of the hospitals.

( ) Of OAS Special Representative

on the other hand, the Secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS), José Miguel Insulza, yesterday announced the appointment of the Canadian Frédéric Bolduc as Special Representative of the Agency in Haiti, after the removal in 2010 of the Brazilian Ricardo Seitenfus. Seitenfus was dismissed by Insulza in December 2010, following the publication of an interview in the Swiss newspaper Le Temps in which questioned the role of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (Minustah) and the policy of the international community towards the Caribbean nation.

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