Thirty-one people died in hospital following the explosion of a tanker truck in northern Benin, bringing the total dead to more than sixty, a local hospital official said on Friday.
”There were originally 80 injured at the hospital,” Boniface Sambieni, director of the Jean de Dieu Hospital in Tanguieta, where victims were transported, told Deutsche Presse Agentur on Friday.
”We are already at our 31st death at the hospital,” he said.
The accident occurred late on Wednesday, when a tanker truck transporting fuel to Mali overturned near the town of Porga, around 500km north of Benin’s commercial capital, Cotonou.
Local residents had begun siphoning fuel from the wreckage, when the tanker exploded, killing many instantly. Most of the dead were women and children.
Survivors were transported to the hospital, which was initially overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster. Sambieni says the situation has since improved, but that people continue to die from their wounds, with many suffering from up to 80% burns.
Sambieni says the health ministry sent extra personnel and supplies. But it was unlikely the provincial hospital in the impoverished West African state could adequately treat such severe burns.
So far, the hospital has received no assistance from outside organisations, he added.
Fuel explosions are common in neighbouring Nigeria, where a thriving business in stolen or bunkered fuel exists.
The accident comes less than two weeks after a similar incident in neighbouring Nigeria where about 200 people died in a pipeline explosion as they tried to steal fuel.
Fuel shortages are common in Benin, and stolen petrol smuggled in from Nigeria is on sale throughout the country. – Sapa-DPA