Pipeline explosion rips through Lagos outskirts

As many as 200 people have been killed in an explosion at an oil pipeline in Nigeria. The disaster took place on the outskirts of Lagos when people were attempting to tap the pipeline illegally to steal fuel, a frequent practice.

Thieves dug the pipeline out of the sand on Inagbe beach and were drilling into the pipeline while filling some 500 jerry cans of fuel, when the explosion swept through the crowd of people that had gathered. Many of the bodies were unidentifiable, some reduced to ash in the inferno. The worst incidents of this kind in Nigeria were in the southern delta region, the major oil production area, in 1998 and 2000. Each claimed 1000 lives.

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