More than 30 killed in Lagos fuel pipeline explosion

More than 30 people siphoning petrol from a pipeline near Lagos, were killed when the leaking fuel exploded into an inferno of flame, Nigerian police said on Friday. Many others were injured by the blast which ocurred at Imore village, across the lagoon from Lagos, on Thursday morning, they added. Crews of scavengers operating in dugout canoes powered by outboard engines had been boring holes into the petrol pipeline to tap fuel for several days before the explosion took place, said Lagos police spokesman Emmanuel Ighodalo. “Between 30 and 50 people died in the fire,” he told IRIN. Witnesses of the disaster quoted survivors as saying a generator used by the fuel thieves to pump fuel from the pipeline caught fire and exploded, engulfing dozens of people scavenging for fuel in flames. The pipeline is operated by government-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and pumps imported fuel from a receiving terminal at the portof Lagos to inland fuel depots across the country. Fire-fighting teams battled huge flames that continued leaping around the blast site on Friday, sending plumes of dark smoke into the sky. An IRIN reporter at the scene counted 10 bodies littering the surrounding vegetation. NNPC officials said petrol flow through the pipeline had been stopped in a bid to put out the fire. “Our target is to quench the fire and repair the pipeline in time to prevent fuel scarcity,” one official said. Police and navy troops kept guard over Imore village, which was deserted after its estimated 1,000 inhabitants fled fearing arrest by the security forces. Most of the villagers are fishermen. Ighodalo said many people who survived the fire with various degrees of burns also fled the scene for fear of being apprehended. Nigeria is Africa's largest oil producer, pumping about 2.5 million barrels of crude per day. Breaking into pipelines to steal fuel is common in Nigeria and thousands have been killed in similar explosions in recent years. In one incident in 1998 more than 1,000 people perished in a pipeline blast at the Niger Delta town of Jesse. Despite government efforts to educate villagers about the dangers of scavenging fuel from punctured pipelines, the practice continues, spurred largely by poverty and the lure of making quick and easy money. There is a thriving and very lucrative black-market in fuel in remote villages and in neighbouring countries where prices are higher.