A gas tanker overturned and exploded on a motorway in central Nigeria on Tuesday, killing at the least 29 individuals and injuring many extra, emergency providers stated.
The newest in a sequence of comparable accidents ocurred in Niger State, alongside a route linking Bida and Agaie.
“A lorry carrying gas overturned and started to leak. Folks went to scoop up the gas. The truck exploded they usually obtained burnt,” Ibrahim Hussaini, an area coordinator for the nationwide emergency company, advised AFP. “We now have 29 useless and 42 injured.”
Tanker truck accidents are frequent in Nigeria, the place roads are sometimes poorly maintained and residents try to siphon off gas after such accidents, typically attributable to dashing and disregarding site visitors legal guidelines.
To revive the financial system, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu ended gas subsidies and forex controls upon taking workplace in Might 2023.
However the adjustments triggered a cost-of-living disaster in Africa’s most populous nation, main individuals to take main dangers to obtain petrol.
In March, 10 individuals died in a pileup on a freeway exterior the capital Abuja after a tanker truck caught hearth.
In January, at the least 98 individuals died after gathering to gather gas following a tanker truck crash in Niger State.
After that incident, Tinubu ordered a nationwide marketing campaign to boost public consciousness of the dangers and environmental hazards posed by gathering gas from fallen tankers.
