The death toll from the explosion of a tanker truck in central Nigeria on Saturday now stands at 86 dead, emergency services said on Sunday, while an initial assessment showed 70 victims.
Killed while collecting gasoline
On Saturday morning around 10 a.m. (9 a.m. GMT), a tanker truck carrying 60,000 liters of gasoline had an accident at the “Dikko junction” in Niger State, on the road linking the federal capital Abuja to Kaduna town. A crowd then gathered near the truck to collect gasoline spilled on the road when the truck exploded.
“The final toll from the tanker truck explosion is 86 dead. We buried 86 burnt bodies between 12 p.m. yesterday (Saturday) and 2 a.m. today (Sunday),” said Ibrahim Audu Husseini, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) spokesperson for the state. of Niger.
Sign of a deep economic crisis
The economic crisis that Nigeria has been going through for a year and a half has pushed many Nigerians into precariousness, particularly due to soaring fuel prices. Some do not hesitate to risk their lives in road accidents to recover fuel, the price of which has quintupled in 18 months.
-In October, more than 170 people died in the same way in Jigawa state, in the north of Africa’s most populous country, which is also the continent’s largest oil producer.
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