Santo Domingo. The balance of deaths from the explosion registered in a commercial area in the south of the Dominican Republic rises to 28 after the death of a man admitted to a local hospital on Thursday night, local authorities reported this Friday.
“The Ministry of Public Health reported the death of a male person” who was in intensive care, “product of third-degree burns on his body,” reported a bulletin from the Emergency Operations Center (CEO).
The powerful explosion occurred on Monday afternoon in San Cristóbal, 24 km from the Dominican capital Santo Domingo. The causes of the accident are still being investigated.
According to press reports, the man who died Thursday at the Juan Pablo Pina regional hospital in San Cristóbal had been admitted with burns on 98% of his body. He still could not be identified.
The COE pointed out that 12 of the 58 injured by the explosion are still in health centers, three of them in intensive care and five in the burn care unit.
Around 500 officials were activated since Monday in emergency work.
The deputy director of the COE, Julián García, told journalists this Friday that the search efforts are continuing at the site of the tragedy, with canine units, so he does not rule out that the number of fatalities could rise.
“Until all the rubble is removed, the search will not stop,” Garcia said.
The explosion had a shock wave of 500 meters and the fires derived from it destroyed four buildings and affected nine others.
San Cristóbal is the fourth most populous province in the Dominican Republic, with 688,828 of the country’s 10.7 million inhabitants.
