At least 95 people including women and children were killed on Thursday after a gasoline tanker crashed on the east-west road in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta and caught fire as people tried to scoop up fuel.
"Early this morning a tanker loaded with petrol fell in Okogbe and people trooped to the scene obviously to scoop the spilled fuel and suddenly there was fire resulting in casualties," Rivers State police spokesman Ben Ugwuegbulam said.
Ugwuegbulam said it was too early to give a casualty figure but a Reuters witness at the scene counted 92 dead bodies of men, women and children.
Two further people died later in hospital, an official added.
Hundreds of people crowded around as soldiers and emergency workers lifted bodies into ambulances and police trucks. The fuel tanker was a pile of smouldering ash, twisted metal and melting tyres.
The tanker swerved as it was trying to avoid a collision with three oncoming vehicles including a bus, said Kayode Olagunju, sector commander of the Federal Road Safety Commission in the southern Rivers state.
Residents said that shortly after the collision hundreds of locals flocked to the site to collect the spilling fuel.
"Then there was an explosion followed by fire," Olagunju told AFP. "Ninety-three were burned to death on the spot. Two died later in the hospital (and) 18 people were seriously injured."
In a statement, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) gave the same figures.
An AFP photographer at the scene said many of those killed were motorcycle taxi operators, known locally as "Okada", who raced to fill up their tanks after learning of the crash.
Olagunju said at least 34 motorcycles were destroyed in the blaze.
The accident happened in an area called Ahoada near the oil hub of Port Harcourt in Nigeria's crude-producing Niger Delta region.
Crashes are common on Nigeria's potholed and poorly maintained roads, and in a region where most people live on less than £1.50 a day, the chance to collect spilling petrol is too much of a temptation, despite the high risk of fires.
The east-west road, which runs across the oil-producing region, has been scheduled for development for almost a decade and money is allocated for it in the budget each year.
Nigeria, Africa's biggest oil producer, is plagued by corruption and inefficiency. Most years only about half budgeted programmes are implemented.
Major accidents, often involving large-haul trucks, are common in Nigeria, where many of the roads in terrible condition.
Lorries operating on the country's road are often old and poorly maintained and road worthiness checks are scant.
Abandoned trucks, some of them destroyed by heavy collisions, can regularly be seen along major Nigerian motorways.
In March, a petrol tanker caught fire after skidding off the road in southern Port Harcourt, killing six people and injuring several others.
While in April last year, a fuel tanker overturned at an army checkpoint in central Nigeria, sparking an inferno in which some 50 people were killed.
Thursday 12 July 2012
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/nigeria/9395126/Nigeria-fuel-tanker-fire-kills-95.html
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gI3ZdIByWzakIQ-LyNrsmLwWZw8w?docId=CNG.f7d00a96706cd138bb7bb6b52e38d2c4.331
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