Many killed while scooping up spilled petrol from road, rising fuel prices forcing them to take ‘desperate measures’.
Mass funerals are taking place in northwestern Nigeria for more than 150 people who died in a fuel tanker explosion, many killed as they tried to collect petrol that had spilled onto the road.
Reporting from Abuja, Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris said on Thursday that the death toll from the disaster had reached 157, with health workers in Jigawa State saying more than 100 others were being treated in hospitals, the severity of their burns and injuries indicating that the death toll could rise.
Police spokesman Lawan Shiisu Adam said the tanker was travelling from the ancient city of Kano to Yobe State in the north when the driver lost control of the vehicle near the town of Majiya, about 530km (330 miles) north of the capital Abuja, causing it to overturn and spill fuel.
On Wednesday, the biggest funeral took place, with more than 100 victims buried, said Idris.
“Not everyone who was killed was part of the crowd that was collecting the fuel,” he pointed out.
“It’s a sad story and a lot of people are shocked by what is happening, but a lot of people also are not surprised, [with] rising poverty levels, shortages and the rise in petrol prices … forcing more and more people to desperate measures,” he said.
Witness Adamu Abdullahi, 37, narrowly missed being hit by the blast that took place at midnight on Tuesday.
“I was there when the whole thing happened, I scooped up the oil and went home to drop it. I picked up my bike to come back, but it developed a fault. While fixing it, I then heard the loud explosion,” he said.
“Little did they know it is a cause of death,” said Haruna Mairiga, executive secretary of the Jigawa State Emergency Management Agency. “Some of them that engaged in fetching this fuel were caught up with the fire. In the process of taking, there [was] a flash of light and the place caught fire.”
With the absence of an efficient railway system to transport cargo, fatal truck accidents are common along most of the major roads in Nigeria – Africa’s most populous country, with more than 220 million residents.
In 2020 alone, there were 1,531 petrol tanker crashes resulting in 535 deaths and 1,142 injuries, according to Nigeria’s Federal Road Safety Corps.
Just last month, a fuel tanker that was also carrying cattle collided with another truck, causing an explosion that killed at least 48 people, and at least 50 of the animals burned alive.
“The road infrastructure in Nigeria is in very bad shape, [with] potholes and in some places craters on the highways. These are the obstacles that drivers try to avoid and in the process, many of them lose control of their vehicles,” said Idris.
Investigations have been launched into the latest disasters. However, said Idris, “the authorities have over the past few decades failed to fix the road infrastructure”.
Many tankers are not designed according to international best practice to avoid spillage during accidents, said Timothy Iwuagwu, president of the Institute of Safety Professionals of Nigeria.
The agencies charged with enforcing safety regulations often fail to do so, he said.
“There are also not enough awareness campaigns, [and] people are not wilfully compliant” with safety measures when such accidents happen, Iwuagwu said.
