Nigeria gas explosion kills at least 15: emergency services
A gas explosion in Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos on Sunday killed at least 15 people, injured a lot more and destroyed around 50 buildings, emergency services said.
Houses, lorries, cars and motorbikes were torched in the blast.
“15 bodies have been recovered now. So many persons have been injured,” national emergency services spokesman Ibrahim Farinloye told AFP, adding that around 50 buildings were also destroyed in the explosion which was followed by a fire.
The blast happened at around 8:00 am (0700 GMT) destroyed around 50 buildings in the residential district of Abule Ado.
Based on the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) the blast was the effect of a truck that “hit gas bottles stacked up in a gas processing plant.
“The impact of the explosion was so huge that it resulted in the collapse of nearby houses and damage to an NNPC pipeline,” the business added.
“We are recovering dead bodies these days and putting them in bags,” said local Red Cross official Adebola Kolawale.
“We've a school here and it’s a residential area. And we've a trade fair here aswell.”
Among those inspecting the damage was Lagos resident Abibola Ayo. He said that although he lives three kilometres away, the blast was so strong he felt it in his home.
In front of a crowd of onlookers, rescue personnel sought to eliminate rubble from a girls boarding school which includes more than 250 pupils.
Pipeline and tanker truck explosions are normal in Nigeria, where most of the people live in poverty despite the fact that the country is the biggest producer of oil on the continent, with around two million barrels per day.
Some incidents happen when residents make an effort to siphon off oil or petrol from pipelines or when tanker drivers have accidents on the country’s ill- maintained roads.
