Lagos - A Nigerian newspaper reported yesterday that up to 500 people may have died in a passenger boat accident on a creek in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta region.
The Comet gave no source for the number of people on the boat, which it said capsized on Wednesday night on the Nembe Creek between the oil city of Port Harcourt and the nearby Bayelsa State capital, Yenogoa.
There was no immediate police or official comment.
However, a journalist on a local newspaper in Port Harcourt, capital of Rivers State, claimed a leading government official told him that although a boat accident had occurred on Wednesday, the number of passengers had "been grossly exaggerated".
"There is no local boat that can ever carry up to 500 passengers," the official, who demanded anonymity, was quoted by the journalist as saying.