About 105 persons have been roasted to death and many others injured after they were engulfed by a petrol tanker explosion in Majiya town, in Taura Local Government Area of Jigawa State.
Incident occurred on Wednesday morning when the tanker fell after it veered to avoid collision with truck and people rushed to collect the spilled fuel.
Jigawa State Police spokesperson Lawan Shiisu Adam, confirmed said the injured are being given medical assistant at the Ringim General Hospital.
“As I am talking to you now, the casualty figure is about 105 and the number of injured is 55,” “The residents were scooping up fuel from the overturned tanker when the explosion occurred, sparking a massive inferno that killed 94 people on the spot,”
Videos that appeared to be from the scene showed a massive fire stretching across the entire area, with what appeared to be bodies littered at the scene.
Deadly truck accidents are common along most of the main roads in Nigeria, with experts attributing many of them to reckless driving, poor road conditions and ill-maintained vehicles.
Last month, at least 48 people were killed in an explosion after a fuel tanker collided with another truck in Nigeria’s north-central Niger State.
In 2020 alone, there were 1,531 petrol tanker crashes resulting in 535 deaths and injuries to 1,142 people, according to Nigeria’s Federal Road Safety Corps.
