NEW DELHI, Nov 6: More than 100 people were killed and scores of others injured, at least 30 of them very critically, in an explosion in an oil tanker in a suburb in Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital, on Saturday morning after large crowds gathered to collect leaking fuel, officials said.
The explosion took place after a bus struck the tanker in Wellington, a suburb just to the east of Freetown. The mortuary at Connaught Hospital reported 92 bodies had been brought in by Saturday morning. About 30 severely burned victims were unlikely to survive, the hospital staff expressed the apprehension.
The tanker exploded when a large crowd had gathered to collect oil leaking from the damage caused by the bus colliding with the tanker. Some videos circulating in the social media showed a giant fireball burning in the night sky following the explosion, as some survivors with severe burns cried out in pain. Charred remains of the victims lay strewn at the scene awaiting transport to mortuaries. President Julius Maada Bio, who was in Scotland attending the United Nations climate talks Saturday, deplored the “horrendous loss of life.”
“My profound sympathies with families who have lost loved ones and those who have been maimed as a result,” he tweeted.
Vice President Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh visited two hospitals overnight and said Sierra Leone’s National Disaster Management Agency and others would “work tirelessly” in the wake of the emergency.
“We are all deeply saddened by this national tragedy, and it is indeed a difficult time for our country,” he said on his Facebook page.
(Manas Dasgupta)