A passing army unit stopped to try to keep onlookers at bay and warn them of
the dangers, but they were overwhelmed, eyewitnesses said.
“Some troops who reached the crash site before the fire broke out told
people to clear off, but many ignored the warning,” said an official
from the National Emergency Management Agency.
Forces from the military’s Joint Task Force “got to the scene before us.
They warned people to leave the scene to avoid disaster. But many of them
were busy scooping fuel. They disobeyed,” Emenike Umesi said.
In March, a petrol tanker caught fire after skidding off the road further
south in Nigeria, killing six people and injuring several others.
And April last year, a fuel tanker overturned at an army checkpoint the
country’s centre, sparking an inferno in which some 50 people were killed.
More than 100 people died in one similar incident in Kenya in 2011, and 50
more were killed in a tanker explosion in Kenya in 2009.
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