Pipeline Blast Kills as Many as 250 Nigerians

A pipeline explosion and fire killed as many as 250 villagers in southern Nigeria as they were scooping up spilled gasoline with buckets, witnesses said Tuesday.

Piles of scorched bodies lay near the pipeline in this village of about 5,000 near the Niger Delta town of Jesse, where about 700 people died in a similar disaster in 1998.

The cause of the blaze was unclear, but villagers said the pipeline, carrying refined petroleum products from nearby Warri to northern Nigeria, was punctured by thieves Sunday night.

Residents of the impoverished village had gone to the area to gather fuel in buckets to sell it on Nigeria’s thriving black market, witnesses said.

“This really wasn’t a surprise. Our people know the danger of scooping for petrol. But they have to survive,” Austin Obaseki said as he grimly observed the carnage.

The blast destroyed buildings within a one-mile radius. Sola Adebayo, a reporter for Lagos’ Daily Times newspaper, counted 100 bodies before giving up. Other reports estimated the dead at 150 to 250.

Crews arrived more than 24 hours after the blast and put out the fire.

Government officials were not available for comment Tuesday. An Information Ministry statement issued late Monday said that “several lives” were lost and “a vital petroleum products pipeline” destroyed.

Nigeria’s network of more than 3,100 miles of pipeline crisscrossing the oil-producing country has become a favorite target of local communities cashing in on the black market for refined products.

Industry officials say gasoline theft has become such big business in southern Nigeria that it now involves people using tanker trucks.

“The tanker drivers puncture the pipeline and pump gasoline into their vehicles and then drive off, leaving fuel gushing out. Villagers then come in with their buckets and . . . cans,” one official said.