LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — An overturned oil tanker exploded in Nigeria while dozens of people were scooping up the leaking fuel and many were killed, police and witnesses said Saturday.
Hundreds of people have died in similar accidents in recent years in Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil producer, as impoverished people risk their lives to collect fuel leaking from pipelines or trucks.
“We have recovered 12 corpses and taken 22 persons with serious burns to hospital,” police spokeswoman Irene Ugbo told The Associated Press. She said the blast occurred Friday evening in Odukpani in Cross River state in the southeast.
Advertisement - story continues below
But some residents put the death toll closer to 60.
“The police only recovered a few corpses, many of the other dead were burnt to ashes,” witness Richard Johnson told the AP.
TRENDING: Judge in Chauvin Trial: Maxine Waters' Statement 'May Result in This Whole Trial Being Overturned'
He said about 60 people were inside a pit scooping fuel when the explosion occurred. “It is not likely that anyone inside the pit survived as there was a lot of fuel in the pit,” Johnson said.
He suggested the blast was caused by an electrical generator that had been brought to the scene to help pump out the fuel for people’s containers.
Advertisement - story continues below
It was not immediately clear what caused the truck to overturn.
About a year ago, more than 30 residents in the same locality were burnt to death while scooping fuel from an oil tanker involved in an accident.
Nigeria’s worst such accident occurred in 1998, when more than 1,000 people died as the leaking oil pipeline from which they were collecting fuel exploded in the town of Jesse.
___
Follow Africa news at https://twitter.com/AP_Africa
The Western Journal has not reviewed this Associated Press story prior to publication. Therefore, it may contain editorial bias or may in some other way not meet our normal editorial standards. It is provided to our readers as a service from The Western Journal.
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.