Nigeria pipeline blast kills up to 200 people

[SlowwHand]

By Tom Ashby
23 minutes ago



INAGBE BEACH, Nigeria (Reuters) - A pipeline explosion killed up to 200 people on the outskirts of Nigeria's biggest city Lagos on Friday, leaving charred corpses on a sandy beach where locals went to tap into the pipe to steal fuel.

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The Red Cross said the pipeline blew up while thieves were drilling into it, igniting about 500 jerrycans of fuel. Theft of petrol or crude oil from pipelines is common in Nigeria.

"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.

Only calcinated skulls and bones were left of five people who were closest to the pipeline.

About 50 blackened, unrecognizable corpses were huddled a short distance from the pipeline, which had been dug out of the sand and bore visible marks of drilling in several places. Some bodies, charred and bloated, floated in the waters of the creek.

"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.

The pipeline, which belongs to state company Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), runs just under the surface of Inagbe Beach, a stretch of golden sand on one of many islands that dot the Atlantic coast around Lagos.

Local government workers wearing rubber gloves hauled bodies out of the water and used a makeshift stretcher to carry them up the beach to a shallow grave a short distance away.

About a dozen police and a few Red Cross officials were at the scene.

Inagbe Beach is not a populated area but people apparently came there to tap into the pipeline. The beach is a short distance away from the village of Ilado, where about 50 people died in a similar inferno last year.

A dilapidated port city home to an estimated 13 million people, Lagos has been hit before by devastating explosions. A blast at a munitions dump in 2002 killed more than 1,000 people.

In Jesse, in the southern state of Delta, a pipeline fire also caused by vandals killed about 1,000 people in 2000.

[Spiffor]

[MrFun]

damn

[SlowwHand]

A lot of lost souls. Definitely ruined some weekend plans.

[KrazyHorse]

The Red Cross said the pipeline blew up while thieves were drilling into it, igniting about 500 jerrycans of fuel. Theft of petrol or crude oil from pipelines is common in Nigeria.

"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.

How the hell did an explosion involving a couple of thousand gallons of fuel kill 200 people?

That doesn't make any sense.

Did an entire village turn out to watch these yahoos drill into the pipeline?

[SlowwHand]

I know a boy of 14 that's burned over 40% of his body from dropping a match in a 1 gallon can, ignitng the fumes.

[KrazyHorse]

I understand that one gallon of gas can kill somebody, but unless these people were all crowded in a very contained area you can't kill that many people with that small an explosion.

Either the damage to the pipeline is far more extensive than this guy is admitting, or something else is going on here. 200 people don't ****ing die because you get a minor flareout from a drillhole.

[Arrian]

Doesn't sound like a minor flameout to me. Plus, I have to assume that lots of people were involved in the attempted theft.

-Arrian

[KrazyHorse]

500 jerrycans is not that much. It's like a quarter of a 737's fuel load

For a fire like that to kill 200 people they need to all be sitting in a room together

[Victor Galis]

Well, I guess oil prices are going up some more.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
For a fire like that to kill 200 people they need to all be sitting in a room together

There might be a small wooden village at this place.

You'll find anarchic villages in such places where many people gather, because it means there are trade opportunities (for food, beverage, or various stuff).

Edit: upon re-reading the article, it says that the island is uninhabitated. Amybe there's another reason then.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Stupid thieves!

[Zkribbler]

They were probably all crowding forward to get gas, and sloshing all over themselves.

[KrazyHorse]

I told them that showering with gasoline was a bad idea.

[Spiffor]

More details:

From the BBC:

Probe ordered after Nigeria blast
Nigeria's president has told security services to uncover the cause of a deadly blast at a pipeline near Lagos.

More than 150 people died on Friday, many burnt beyond recognition, when petrol exploded while gushing from a suspected tapped pipeline.

A spokesman for President Olusegun Obasanjo said he had ordered a thorough police investigation and increased protection for other pipelines.

Some 2,000 people have died in similar incidents in Nigeria in recent years.

"President Obasanjo has received with great sadness and concern the news of the death of Nigerians in the explosion in Lagos," spokesman Oluremi Oyo told the AFP news agency.

"It is a grave reminder of similar incidents in the past. [Mr] Obasanjo said that people should never trifle for whatever reason with elements that can cause such catastrophe," she added.

Mass burial

Clean-up efforts continued on Saturday at the site of the explosion, on Atlas Creek Island on the outskirts of Lagos.

Many of the dead have been given a mass burial near the site of the blast, officials said.


The heat and severity of the blast left many victims unrecognisable.

Sensing a potential contamination risk if the charred bodies were left untreated, health officials decreed that victims should be buried at the earliest opportunity.

Visiting the scene of the blast on Saturday, Lagos health commissioner Tola Kasali blamed personal greed for the country's regular pipeline explosions.

"Because this thing has happened many times before, we thought it would be a deterrent, but apparently it wasn't enough deterrent for these people who died," he told the Associated Press.

"Anywhere you have a pipeline in this country, you have this problem because people are greedy and they want quick money."

Jerrycans

Correspondents say the Friday morning blast incinerated all those within a 20m radius, but the exact number of casualties may not be known for some time.

The Nigerian Red Cross said local people arrived on the scene after thieves had initially ruptured the pipeline.


NIGERIA PIPELINE DISASTERS
Dec 2004: At least 20 killed in Lagos
Sept 2004: At least 60 killed in Lagos
June 2003: At least 105 killed in Abia State
Jul 2000: At least 300 killed in Warri
Mar 2000: At least 50 killed in Abia State
Oct 1998: At least 1,000 killed in Jesse
"We found that vandals have drilled holes on [into] the pipeline, from where they have been stealing fuel," said Nigerian Red Cross Secretary General Abiodun Orebiyi.

Local people were apparently gathered around the site of the leak when the fuel ignited. Five hundred jerrycans were found at the scene.

The BBC's Sola Odunfa in Lagos says any villagers who survived would have fled in case they were arrested for stealing petrol.

Atlas Creek is a small fishing community but some people have moved there because rent is cheaper than Lagos, where they commute by speedboat.


HAVE YOUR SAY
Everything boils down to poverty - I wonder why a country as rich as Nigeria is in this kind of predicament
Nlolu Omotosho, Houston, TX
The pipeline serves the Atlas Cove petrol depot, which supplies south-western Nigeria.

Despite being the eighth-largest oil exporter in the world, Nigeria has to re-import refined oil products, such as petrol, because of decades of neglect of its own refineries.

The pipelines often pass through poor communities, who break them to steal the precious fuel.

Militants have frequently targeted the centre of Nigeria's oil industry in the Niger Delta, further to the east.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/h...ca/4768159.stm