At least 92 people including women and children were killed today after a
gasoline tanker crashed on the east-west road in Nigeria's
oil-producing Niger Delta, and caught fire. As people tried to scoop up
spilled fuel. Please be warned the following footage contains graphic
images
Charred smouldering bodies can be seen next to the burn out tanker. This man who is head of road safety explained what happened.
"It
was an accident that happened and it started around 6.30am this morning
and before we got here, the tanker behind me fell down and people came
out to scoop fuel and I want to use this medium to appeal to Nigerians
that nothing is free and it is dangerous for people to come close to
this type of accident or to move closer to vehicle."
Crashes are
common on Nigeria's pot-holed and poorly maintained roads, and in a
region where most people live on less than 2 U.S. dollars a day the
chance to collect spilling petrol is too much of a temptation, despite
the high risk of fires.
The east-west road, which runs across the
oil-producing region, has been scheduled for development for almost a
decade and money is allocated for it in the budget each year. However
Nigeria, as Africa's biggest oil producer, is plagued by corruption and
inefficiency. And most years only about half budgeted programmes are
implemented.