LAGOS, Dec 26: A gasoline pipeline ruptured by thieves burst into flames on Tuesday as scavengers collected the fuel in a poor neighbourhood, killing at least 260 people in the latest oil-industry disaster to hit Africa's biggest petroleum producer.
Braving a towering pillar of flames and a cloud of acrid black smoke, thousands of residents of Lagos' Abule Egba neighbourhood surged toward rescue workers carrying away charred bodies, hoping to catch a glimpse of missing family members.
“My brother, my brother,” wept 19-year-old Suboke Adebayo as an unidentified charred male corpse was loaded into a waiting ambulance. Adebayo, a student, had spent hours trying unsuccessfully to contact her sibling: “I've been calling him since this morning but I can only hear a holding tone.”
A woman in a yellow T-shirt sobbed uncontrollably, slapping herself on the face and clawing her own arms in grief.
Residents said a gang of thieves had been illegally tapping the pipe for months, carting away gasoline in tankers for resale.
Pipeline tapping is a common practice in Nigeria, where a majority of the country's 130 million people live in poverty despite their country's role as Africa's leading crude producer.
Massive corruption and mismanagement has left the country's refineries unable to meet demand and fuel shortages are common. Christians heading home for Christmas, and Muslims preparing for an upcoming feast day, have jammed filling stations for days across Lagos, a massive city of 13 million people.
A single pilfered jerrycan of gasoline, sold on the black market, can equal two weeks of wages for a poor Nigerian.
Earlier this year, 150 people died in a similar incident and a 1998 pipeline fire killed 1,500. Many Nigerians feel they've gained little from decades of oil production in their country, saying gas flaring and oil spills have polluted lands while they remain poor as only a tiny elite grows rich.
Tuesday's blast was the worst in years.
It was unclear what ignited the spilled fuel just after dawn.—AP
