Nigeria pipeline blast kills up to 200 people
INAGBE BEACH, Nigeria (Reuters) – A pipeline explosion killed up to 200 people on the outskirts of Lagos on Friday, leaving charred corpses on a sandy beach where locals tapping the pipe to steal fuel ignited the blast.
The Red Cross said the pipeline blew up in the early hours of the morning while thieves were siphoning fuel into jerry cans for sale on the black market. The massive explosion cooked everything within a 20 meter radius.
Only gray calcinated skulls and bones were left of five people who were closest to the pipeline, which had been dug out of the sand and bore marks of drilling in several places.
About 100 blackened, unrecognizable corpses were strewn on the water’s edge a few meters away, where the golden sand was still steaming hot on Friday afternoon.
Some bodies, charred and bloated, floated in the waters of the creek, which is only about a mile from Lagos city center by boat.
“You can see the corpses. Some are burned to ash. Others are remnants. … We estimate 150 to 200 people died,” Lagos State Police Commissioner Emmanuel Adebayo said at the scene.
Theft of petrol and crude oil from pipelines is common in Nigeria, an oil producing country where the vast majority of people live in poverty.
“This is caused by hunger and greed. If you’ve got no job and you’re hungry you take advantage of anything to feed your family. Anyone who takes this kind of risk is desperate,” said Olanrewaju Saka-Shenayon, a Lagos State government official.
reuters.com