World
  |
|
At least 89 die in Nigerian tanker fire
AFP
KANO, Nigeria
Petroleumworld.com 03 29 07
At least 89 people were killed when an upturned oil tanker burst into flames as it was being looted in northern Nigeria, officials said Wednesday.
More than 100 survivors were being treated for burns, they said.
"From our initial record, 85 people lost their lives. But the figure has now risen to 89 because four more people died in hospital," Kaduna State Emergency Management Agency executive secretary Aliyu Saleh Raminkura told AFP.
"The figure is likely to be higher. One hundred and one survivors, mostly youths, are being treated ... for varying degrees of burns."
Police said the accident happened Monday evening in Kaduna state as the tanker tried to park in the village of Katugal, some 150 kilometres (90 miles) south of the state capital Kaduna.
Villagers were thronging around the vehicle to loot its valuable cargo when it erupted in flames.
It was not clear if the impact of the accident caused the fuel to leak or whether the vehicle was vandalized.
"The tanker turned over, the villagers came to scoop fuel and then the tanker caught fire," a local police spokesman said.
Events perceived as giving a negative image of the country are not reported by state media in Nigeria, explaining why news of the accident took so long to become public.
Road accidents with large casualty figures are common in Nigeria where vehicles are often poorly maintained, overloaded and driven recklessly.
In December last year a driver lost control of his lorry outside Kaduna during gubernatorial primaries and crashed into a crowd, crushing scores of people to death.
Almost equally common are fires where people perish while helping themselves to fuel, be it from oil company installations or trucks.
Vandalism of pipelines and related installations is common, with an official report published last July registering 2,258 such acts in the previous five years.
For 2005 alone, an estimated 650,000 tonnes of crude was lost through such incidents, according to the same report.
Last December a fire at a vandalised pipeline in Lagos killed some 260 people who were stealing fuel. Across the country in the past 10 years, thousands of people have died while stealing oil.
In the worst such incident, in Jeese village in the southern Delta State in 1998, more than 1,000 suspected thieves were roasted alive after an explosion.
The Nigerian authorities habitually show little sympathy for those who die in such explosions, condemning them as greedy.
Nigeria is Africa's biggest crude oil producer but nevertheless relies on imports for its refined product requirements as its own refineries are not in working order.
AFP 28 1909 GMT 03 07
Copyright© 2007 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
Your
feedback is important to us!
We invite all our readers to share with us
their views and comments about this article.
Write to editor@petroleumworld.com
Any
question or suggestions, please write to:
editor@petroleumworld.com
Best
Viewed with IE
5.01+
Windows
NT 4.0, '95, '98 and ME +/ 800x600 pixels