Blast in Pharmaceutical Lab Kills 15 in Haitian Capital, Injures Hundreds
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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — An explosion at midday Friday toppled a three-story building on a downtown corner packed with merchants and shoppers in Port-au-Prince. Officials said at least 15 people were killed and hundreds hurt.
An army communique said chemicals exploded in a pharmaceutical laboratory in the building.
The military sought to cut off speculation of a political motive. Tensions are high in Haiti nearly a year after the coup that toppled popularly elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Total casualties numbered “in the hundreds,” said Dr. William Fougere, president of the Haitian Red Cross.
The concrete building, on bustling Jean-Jacques Dessalines Boulevard, the main street in the Haitian capital, housed a drugstore on the first floor, with a pharmaceutical laboratory and warehouse above it.
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