Nigeria explosion: Dozens feared dead after leaking oil tanker blows up

Police confirm at least 12 deaths but some residents put death toll closer to 60 people

A Nigerian man looks over the scene at an oil tanker explosion in 2015 (Rex)

Many people have been killed after an overturned oil tanker exploded in Nigeria while dozens of people were scooping up the leaking fuel, police and witnesses said on Saturday.

Hundreds of people have died in similar accidents in recent years in Nigeria, Africa's largest oil producer, as impoverished people risk their lives to collect fuel leaking from pipelines or trucks.

"We have recovered 12 corpses and taken 22 persons with serious burns to hospital," police spokesperson Irene Ugbo told Associated Press.

She said the blast occurred on Friday evening in Odukpani in Cross River state in the south-east.

However, some residents put the death toll closer to 60.

"The police only recovered a few corpses, many of the other dead were burnt to ashes," witness Richard Johnson told AP.

He said about 60 people were inside a pit scooping fuel when the explosion occurred. "It is not likely that anyone inside the pit survived as there was a lot of fuel in the pit," Mr Johnson said.

He suggested the blast was caused by an electrical generator that had been brought to the scene to help pump out the fuel for people's containers.

It was not immediately clear what caused the truck to overturn.

Cross River State Governor Benedict Ayade said in a statement that the incident must be “thoroughly investigated” and called on the government to act to avoid similar incidents occurring again.

“I am too shocked and traumatized to express the depth of my grief for the victims of the explosion,” he said, according to Nigerian newspaper Vanguard.

“As a government, we must try and reach out to the victims’ families who are affected by these avoidable deaths.”

About a year ago, more than 30 residents in the same locality were burnt to death while scooping fuel from an oil tanker involved in an accident.

Nigeria's worst such accident occurred in 1998, when more than 1,000 people died as the leaking oil pipeline from which they were scooping fuel exploded in the town of Jesse.

Associated Press