A pipeline explosion and fire killed 250 villagers in southern Nigeria as they were scooping up spilled petrol with buckets, witnesses said yesterday.
Villagers hurriedly organised a mass burial for 50 of the charred victims, including many who had dived into a nearby river with their clothes on fire following Monday's explosion at Adeje, near the oil city of Warri.
Piles of scorched bodies lay near the pipeline in this village of about 5,000 inhabitants on the highway leading north from Warri and close to the Niger Delta town of Jesse, where about 1,000 people died in a similar disaster in 1998.
Villagers said the pipeline carrying refined petroleum products from Warri to northern Nigeria was punctured by thieves on Sunday night. Residents had gone to the area to gather fuel in buckets and sell it in the country's thriving black market for refined products, witnesses said.
The same pipeline was punctured and set ablaze at four separate points in the area on June 3rd.
Residents said many other survivors had gone into hiding fearing a police swoop on suspected fuel thieves.
Scores had been taken to hospitals where many died. The death toll could rise as many bodies were believed to be still in the river, they added.
"I lost four of my relations in the fire and I only came here to see that they have already been buried along with many others," said Adeje resident Mr Matthew Ofuye.
Fire crews from the state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) arrived more than 24 hours after the explosion and managed to put out the fire. Such is the frequency of fire outbreaks on pipelines in the Warri area that firefighters have practically given up any effort to quell them. The usual practice is to cut the flow in pipes and let the flames burn out.
Nigeria's network of more than 5,000 km of pipelines criss-crossing the country has become a favourite target of local communities cashing in on the black market for refined products.
"When we heard the explosion and saw the raging fire we considered it as normal because the breaking of pipelines and siphoning of fuel is happening all the time," said Adeje resident Mr Monday Ochuko.
"But when people started screaming we rushed there and saw the bodies," said Mr Ochuko, who added that he had taken his family to Warri for fear of a police swoop on suspected fuel thieves.
Industry officials say petrol theft has become such a booming business in southern Nigeria that it now involves people using road tankers.
"The tanker drivers puncture the pipeline and pump gasoline into their vehicles and then drive off, leaving fuel gushing out. Villagers then come in with their buckets and jerry cans," one official said.
Although OPEC member Nigeria is Africa's biggest oil producer, it has been plagued by shortages of petroleum products. Its four refineries have been run down by years of corrupt rule by soldiers who relinquished power last year.
The Warri pipeline was originally built to carry crude oil to a refinery in the northern town of Kaduna. It has been modified to transport refined products following a prolonged shutdown of NNPC's 110,000 barrels per day Kaduna refinery for repairs.
President Olusegun Obasanjo, who came to office in May 1999, has set up a special task force of soldiers and police backed by helicopters to protect pipelines.