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Hundreds killed in Lagos fuel blast
Published in Saudi Press Agency on 26 - 12 - 2006


Hundreds of people were burned
alive on Tuesday when fuel from a vandalised pipeline exploded
in Nigeria's largest city, Lagos, emergency workers said, according to Reuters.
Crowds of local residents went to scoop up petrol using
plastic containers after an armed gang punctured the underground
pipeline overnight to siphon fuel into road tankers.
"We cannot confirm how many hundreds were killed, but we
know it is more than 200," said Abiodun Orebiyi,
secretary-general of the Nigerian Red Cross, adding that 60
people were taken to hospital with serious burns.
A Red Cross official at the scene said 250 were confirmed
dead, adding that they were still collecting names of the
missing.
The remains of hundreds of bodies, most burned beyond
recognition, could be seen at the scene of the blast in the
densely populated Abule Egba district, next to a ramshackle car
workshop and a saw mill.
Some corpses lay rigid on the ground -- arms and legs thrust
awkwardly in the air -- their clothes and skin burned off by the
blast. Others were reduced to ash.
It took fire fighters equipped with leaking water hoses
about six hours to extinguish the flames as hundreds of people
came to watch.
In the absence of an ambulance service, one group of
volunteers loaded charred corpses into an estate car operated by
the Lagos road safety authority.
Some women sat crying on a bench.
"One friend knocked on our door and told my husband they
were taking fuel. My husband ran out with two buckets and now he
has gone. This is a curse from God," said a woman who gave her
name as Ole.
Youths with jerry cans were offering stolen fuel on a nearby
roadside at double the official price.
Long queues have formed at fuel stations across Nigeria over
the past few weeks because of shortages in supply from the
national oil company.
"Because of the scarcity, people want to make a quick profit
or just fill their tank," Orebiyi said.
Despite huge exports of crude oil, Nigeria suffers regular
shortages of petrol and diesel because it relies on imports of
refined fuel from the West.
Industry experts estimate that about five percent of
Nigeria's crude oil is stolen for export by criminal syndicates
with contacts in the military and government.
But smaller-scale theft of gasoline and diesel is also
common, and much more deadly because of the highly flammable
nature of these fuels.
A similar explosion at a vandalised pipeline in another part
of Lagos in May killed about 200 people.


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