About one hundred people were killed and twenty more injured in Thursday’s fuel pipeline fire at Ijegun, a suburb of Nigeria’s commercial city of Lagos, rescue officials said.
About one hundred people were killed and twenty more injured in Thursday’s fuel pipeline fire at Ijegun, a suburb of Nigeria’s commercial city of Lagos, rescue officials said.
The fire started when an excavator working on a road expansion project burst a fuel pipeline, triggering off an explosion. Officials said nearby schools and homes were hurriedly evacuated as the fire spread across the area.
According to Nigerian Red Cross disaster coordinator Suleman Maikubi, the death toll among children attending school in the surrounding area was unclear.
Earlier on officials had said the raging inferno had made it impossible to give an estimate of the total number of those who died or were injured.
Thursday’s incident is the latest in a series of pipeline fires which have left hundreds dead in oil producing Nigeria. Although usually caused by vandals who deliberately destroy fuel pipelines so they can siphon the product for sale, this incident is unlike the previous ones.
An earlier report on Thursday had said Nigeria lost 150.5 billion naira to fuel pipeline vandalisation between 2000 and 2007.
