BEIRUT: A fuel tank blast in Lebanon early on Sunday killed 28 people and injured nearly 80, authorities and medics said, burning a crowd clamouring for petrol in the crisis-hit country.
The tragedy in the remote north overwhelmed medical facilities and heaped new misery on a nation already beset by an economic crisis and severe fuel shortages that have crippled hospitals and caused long power cuts.
It revived bitter memories of an enormous explosion at Beirut port last August that killed more than 200 people and destroyed swathes of the capital.
An adviser to the health ministry said the death toll from the blast in Al-Tleil village in the Akkar region had climbed to 28. The Lebanese Red Cross said 79 others were injured.
The military said a fuel tank that "had been confiscated by the army to distribute to citizens" exploded just before 2:00 am (2300 GMT). Soldiers were among the victims.
The army began raiding petrol stations Saturday to curb hoarding by suppliers following a central bank decision to scrap fuel subsidies.
The official National News Agency (NNA) said the blast followed scuffles between "residents that gathered around the container to fill up gasoline" overnight.
Hospitals in Akkar, one of Lebanon's poorest regions near the border with Syria, and in the northern port city of Tripoli said they had to turn away many injured because they were ill-equipped to treat severe burns.
"The corpses are so charred that we can't identify them," said Yassine Metlej, an employee at an Akkar hospital.
"Some have lost their faces, others their arms," Metlej told AFP.
A security source told AFP DNA testing would start "soon" to identify victims.
Health Minister Hamad Hassan said he was in contact with countries including Turkey, Kuwait and Jordan to evacuate serious cases abroad.
Ismail al-Sheikh, 23, burned on his arms and legs, was driven by his sister Marwa to Beirut's Geitawi hospital, some 80 kilometres (50 miles) away.
"We were informed that the army was distributing gasoline... so people flocked to fill it in plastic containers... straight from the tank," Marwa told AFP.
Some said a lighter sparked the blast, she said; other witnesses claimed shots were fired.
The explosion was widely seen as a direct consequence of official negligence that had pushed the country deeper into free fall.
"The dead are victims of a careless state," Marwa told AFP.
Sawsan Abdullah burst into tears at Geitawi hospital when a doctor told her that her son, a soldier, was in a critical condition.
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