Port-au-Prince.– At least 32 people, including women and children, were killed and some 50 injured in southern Haiti when a heavily loaded truck plowed head-on into three oncoming vehicles when its brakes failed, officials said.

The accident occurred in the town of Cavaillon Saturday, authorities said adding two Canadians were among the injured.

"The number of fatalities increases every hour because some of the injured are in very serious condition," Judge Pierre Jasmyn, who was at the scene of the accident, told the press.

He said 19 people had died at the scene while the rest succumbed to wounds on the way to hospital in the nearby city of Cayes.

UN helicopters helped evacuate the injured to hospitals in various parts of the country.
The victims included at least 15 women and about a dozen children, officials said.