At least 100 people might have died in an explosion at an illegal oil refinery in southeast Nigeria, a local oil official said on Sunday, as the search intensified for bodies at the site and for two people suspected of being involved in the blast.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, in a statement, called the explosion a “catastrophe and a national disaster.”
The explosion on Friday night at the facility in the Ohaji-Egbema local government area in Imo State was triggered by a fire at two fuel storage areas where more than 100 people worked, state officials said.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Dozens of workers were caught up in the explosion while many others attempted to escape the blaze by running into wooded areas.
Those who died in the disaster are estimated to be within “the range of 100,” Imo Commissioner for Petroleum Resources Goodluck Opiah said. “A lot of them ran into the bush with the burns and they died there.”
Buhari has directed the nation’s security forces “to intensify the clampdown” on such facilities being operated illegally in many parts of southern Nigeria, a spokesperson said in a statement.
Although Nigeria is Africa’s largest producer of crude oil, for many years its oil production capacity has been limited by a chronic challenge of oil storage and the operation of illegal refineries.
Nigeria lost at least US$3 billion in crude oil to theft from January last year to February this year, with shady business operators often avoiding regulators by setting up refineries in remote areas such as the one that exploded in Imo, the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission said last month.
“There are no arrests yet, but the two culprits are on the run, with the police now looking for them,” Imo Commissioner for Information Declan Emelumba said.
Officials did not reveal the identities of the suspects.
A mass burial is being planned for those killed in the explosion, many of whom “were burnt beyond recognition,” Emelumba said.
Environmental officials have started to fumigate the area.
The government and the military are stepping up actions “to minimize the criminalities along the oil production lines,” said Horatius Egua, a senior official at the Nigerian Ministry of Petroleum Resources.
However, Opiah said the problem of illegal refineries “has never been this bad” and remains “difficult to end.”
“It is like asking why kidnapping or armed robbery has not stopped,” he said. “Even with this incident, not many people will be deterred. I am sure more illegal refineries will be cropping up in other places.”
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