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January 19, 2025 | 02:08 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - At least 70 people were killed and dozens more injured after a fuel tanker truck exploded in northern Nigeria on Saturday, a senior government official said, Reuters reported.
"At this point, over 70 bodies have been recovered, 56 people injured and over 15 shops destroyed," the National Emergency Management Authority said in a statement.
"The injured have been taken to hospital for treatment while efforts to recover the bodies of the victims are ongoing."
A witness said residents and officials were digging graves with the intention of burying the victims on Saturday night in accordance with Islamic rites. Nigeria is a Muslim-majority country in Africa's most populous.
Earlier, Kumar Tsukwam, the Federal Road Safety Corps sector commander for Niger state, said most of the victims were poor locals who rushed to collect spilled petrol after the truck overturned.
He said many of the victims were injured while trying to collect spilled fuel from the tanker that crashed on the road.
He added that all personnel of the FRSC and other agencies were still at the scene carrying out rescue operations.
In a separate statement, Abdullahi Baba-Arah, director-general of the Nigerian State Emergency Management Agency (NSEMA), explained that the explosion occurred after a tanker truck collided with another tanker trying to transfer fuel at the site.
During the transfer process, the fuel came into contact with a generator used to complete the transfer, triggering the explosion that killed and injured many people.
Baba-Arah also added that the fire destroyed property worth millions of naira, Nigeria’s currency which currently trades at about 1,560 naira to the US dollar.
The accident in the Nigerian state follows a similar explosion in Jigawa state last October that killed 147 people, one of Nigeria’s worst tragedies.
Such accidents have become commonplace in Africa’s largest oil producer, killing dozens of people in a country grappling with its worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation.
Petrol prices in Nigeria have soared more than 400 percent since President Bola Tinubu scrapped decades-old subsidies when he took office in May 2023.
Bologi Ibrahim, a spokesman for Nigerian state governors, said residents should prioritize their safety when petrol tankers are involved in accidents.
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