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Fuel pipeline fire claims 34
27/12/2007 09:03 - (SA)
Igbagbon - A ruptured gasoline pipeline exploded in flames, killing at least 34 people near Nigeria's main city of Lagos as they tried to scoop fuel from the gushing leak, said police. A witness said he saw 40 bodies.
The explosion, on a pipeline that carried imported gasoline from the Lagos port to inland depots, took place on Tuesday morning at Igbagbon, a village near the coastal city of Lagos. It was a stretch of pipeline in remote swamp waters, and news of the fire only filtered out on Wednesday morning.
A charred swathe of bush littered with hundreds of burned and unburned jerry cans and buckets was all that remained of the disaster site on Wednesday after firefighters put out the blaze and engineers clamped the rupture.
Lagos police spokesperson Frank Mbah said that officers counted 34 bodies at the scene.
Twenty-eight bodies burnt beyond recognition were buried in a mass grave near the site by Red Cross volunteers, said Abiodun Orebiyi, secretary of the Nigerian Red Cross.
Most victims 'women, children'
Orebiyi said the final toll might never be known, since local people who arrived the scene earlier had also buried some of the dead.
"There were more than 40 bodies when we first got here," said Ganiyu Odukale, a resident of the Igbagbon fishing community closest to disaster location, who said he was among the first at the scene on Tuesday.
Red Cross officials said they were now focussing efforts on searching for injured people who have gone into hiding because they had been engaged in an illegal activity.
Orebiyi said: "Many have fled deeper into their villages as afraid they may be arrested. We're sending volunteers into the villages to persuade them to come for treatment."
Most of the victims were women and children who had crowded at the scene with jerry cans and buckets in the hope of collecting fuel for sale or personal use.
Despite its oil riches, the vast majority of Nigerians remained impoverished, living on less than $1 a day, tempted by the opportunities to obtain free fuel in spite of the dangers.
More than 400 people died in two similar pipeline explosions in Lagos in 2006. Authorities blamed the disasters on criminal gangs who broke into the pipelines to siphon fuel for sale, attracting crowds of people who came in their wake to scavenge for fuel.
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