100 Killed in Gas Tanker Blast in Nigeria

VOA News
Last updated on: December 25, 2015 9:47AM

An explosion at an industrial gas plant in southern Nigeria ignited an inferno, killing at least 100 people and injuring many others, according to journalists on the scene.

The office of President Muhammadu Buhari said Friday that "tens of people" looking forward to their Christmas celebrations were killed, without giving an exact toll.

The fire ignited Thursday at a gas plant in the town of Nnewi, Anambra state, when a gas truck exploded after unloading its contents. Reports say the resulting fire burned to death many of the people standing in line to refill their cooking gas canisters.

The fire raged for hours, consuming nearby buildings and and engulfing Nnewi in black clouds of billowing smoke. "It was a huge inferno," a police spokesman told the French news agency ((AFP)).

The injured were taken to the Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital in Nnewi.