Oil tanker explosion kills over 90 in Sierra Leone

3 yıl önce

DAKAR, Senegal — A fuel tanker exploded on the outskirts of Sierra Leone’s seaside capital late Friday, killing more than 90 people and wounding dozens of others at a busy intersection, officials said.

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The tanker burst into flames after colliding with a bus in the suburb of Wellington, turning the night sky orange, photos and video show. A mortuary in Freetown received 94 bodies, the mayor of Freetown wrote on her Facebook page.

“The video and photo footage making rounds on social media are harrowing,” wrote Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyer.

At least 92 others were injured, she added. Witnesses said people had crowded around the crash to collect leaking oil when the tanker blew up, setting ablaze nearby cars and buildings.

The death toll is likely to rise, officials warned, as more bodies are recovered from the charred debris.

The West African nation’s president, who was in Scotland for the United Nations climate summit Saturday, tweeted an image of people gathered around the smoking wreckage.

“My profound sympathies with families who have lost loved ones,” President Julius Maada Bio wrote, “and those who have been maimed as a result.”

The accident happened about 10 miles east of the site of another major disaster, some noted: the Sugarloaf mountain mudslide, which claimed more than 1,000 lives in 2017 and destroyed thousands of homes.