100 On Danger List As Fuel Fire Kills 80 In Rivers

100 On Danger List As Fuel Fire Kills 80 In Rivers

IT was a black Thursday at Okogbe community in Ahoada West Local Government Area of Rivers State, in Southern Nigeria, following a tanker explosion that roasted over 80 persons to death with 100 others currently on danger list.

The incident occurred at a boundary community to Bayelsa state, Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan's home state. The tragic incident also left over seven vehicles burnt while mongt hundred persons including pregnant women and children were injured.

Vehicular traffic along the busy East/West Highway, was crippled as most of the vehicles plying Port Harcourt, Warri, Yenagoa and Lagos routes, suffered long queue while others who could not stand the sight, made a hurried u-turn.

A correspondent of AkanimoReports reported that the incident occurred in the early hours of Thursday morning at 7am along the Okogbe community as a tanker loaded with petroleum product got involved in a ghastly accident with another vehicle, forcing the tanker to swing off the road and somersaulted with the product.

The explosion occurred when the villagers seized the opportunity to scoop out petroleum product from the tanker, a seeming clear evidence of the worrisome mass poverty in the oil and gas region. For those who know better, millions of citizens in the region live on less than one US dollar, a day.

The raging fire which spread to the main road also burnt vehicles plying the road and motorcycles used in scooping the product. Hundreds of jerry cans litered the scene of the disaster.

Ubiquitous motorbike taxis, popularly known as Okada, were used as a makeshift ambulance in conveying burnt victims to Mbiama, a major rural community near Bayelsa, to health care centers.

Although an Oando fuel station located near the explosion site was not affected by the ravaging fire, good Samaritans were seen combing bushes in search of injured persons along the Agip pipeline close to the scene of the incident.

Soldiers and policemen were deployed to the scene to control traffic.

Mrs. Cecilia Ike, who narrowly escaped death said that the fuel tanker was involved in an accident and somersaulted with product before villagers rushed to scoop the product.

She said following the mass rush of villagers to scoop the product, somebody mischievously threw light to the scene, blaming it all on the youths of the area.

She gave thanks to God that she was alive to tell her story because, according to her, ''i fetched two jerry cans of the product earlier, and went in search of more jerry cans before the tanker exploded''.

Mr. Augustine Ayibatari, another eye-witness, who also escaped death by the whiskers gave a rough estimate of the dead toll at between 80 and 100 including school children.

He said the tanker went up in flames at about 7am as villagers trooped to the somersaulted tanker to fetch fuel before the fire sparked off, attributing his escape to God.

But, one of the soldiers who witnessed the incident put the dead toll at 100 persons. He said those who died were burnt beyond recognition, pointing out that some of the victims who were recovered from a stream close to the Oando fuel station, dived into the stream to cool their heated bodies.

Many of the victims will hardly get treatment due to the near absence of good health facilities around the area.

ENDS

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