At least 70 die in explosion in Nigeria while collecting fuel from overturned tanker

At least 70 people have died in north-central Nigeria after a gasoline tanker exploded after crashing in the early hours of Saturday morning, the country’s emergency response agency said.

Nearly all the victims were locals who had rushed to collect the fuel that spilled when the tanker overturned.

“They finished scooping the fuel and they brought a generator to use to transfer the fuel into another truck. And when they started the generator, the explosion happened,” said eyewitness Abdulazeez.

The Federal Road Safety Corps says most of them were burnt beyond recognition.

This was not the first incident of its kind.

With the absence of an efficient railway system to transport cargo, fatal truck accidents are common along most of the major roads in Nigeria.

In addition, the petrol price has gone up by over 400 per cent since May 2023 when President Bola Tinubu scrapped a decades old fuel subsidy.

This has led many to risk their lives to recover fuel during tanker truck accidents.

In October last year, more than 170 people died in a similar incident in Jigawa State, in northern Nigeria.