(Lagos) Nigerian authorities on Monday collected the charred bodies of more than 100 people who died in an explosion at an illegal refinery in southern Nigeria for burial on Tuesday, after an accident described as a “disaster” by the president.
Posted at 3:04 p.m.
Friday’s blast between Rivers and Imo states is one of the worst in recent years in a region where oil thefts and illegal refining are causing huge losses for Africa’s biggest crude producer .
“This morning, the toll is 110 (dead) while many burned people are receiving treatment in hospitals,” Ifeanyi Nnaji, a local official with the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) told AFP. .
“We collected the remains of the victims for a collective burial” on Tuesday, he added.
Mr. Nnaji explained that the bodies, charred, were unrecognizable, which made it difficult for the families to identify the victims.
An investigation has been launched to determine the causes of the explosion, told AFP the head of the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), Idris Musa.
For his part, President Muhammadu Buhari spoke of “a national disaster”, in a statement published by his services.
He also called on law enforcement to step up crackdowns on clandestine refineries.
The Niger Delta region is devastated by decades of vandalism and illegal hydrocarbon exploitation. Armed groups and residents regularly siphon crude from pipelines owned by major oil companies, which they then refine at illegal sites and resell on the black market.
Nigeria’s worst pipeline explosion occurred in October 1998 in the southern town of Jesse, killing more than 1,000 residents.
Mele Kyari, director of the national oil company, estimated that Nigeria loses nearly 250,000 barrels a day at the hands of thieves.
Since January, “at the current price of $100 a barrel, we have lost about $1.5 billion,” he told a parliamentary hearing.
Despite the country’s immense wealth in hydrocarbons, most of the inhabitants live in great poverty and regularly accuse the big oil companies of having also contributed to the pollution of their region without participating in its development.
Decades of oil spills have devastated mangroves and entire villages, where fishing and agriculture once provided the main local source of income.