{"id":31111,"date":"2019-07-03T11:56:41","date_gmt":"2019-07-03T03:56:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=31111"},"modified":"2019-07-03T11:56:43","modified_gmt":"2019-07-03T03:56:43","slug":"over-50-nigerians-killed-whiles-siphoning-fuel-from-crashed-tanker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=31111","title":{"rendered":"Over 50 Nigerians killed whiles siphoning fuel from crashed tanker"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong><em><br><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanaweb.com\/GhanaHomePage\/worldNews\/Over-50-Nigerians-killed-whiles-siphoning-fuel-from-crashed-tanker-760169?gallery=1\"><img src=\"https:\/\/cdn.ghanaweb.com\/imagelib\/pics\/89281341.295.jpg\" alt=\"NIGERIA FUEL TANKER\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>ABUJA, July 3 (NNN-AFRICANEWS) &#8212; At least 50 people were killed in Nigeria when fuel from a crashed truck that they were siphoning up caught fire, a spokesman for the governor in central Benue state said.<br><br>\u201cA tanker loaded with fuel fell Monday and people were scooping its products when it caught fire, killing over 50 persons,\u201d the spokesman said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Others were badly injured and taken to hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The driver of the tanker had lost control of the vehicle after trying to dodge a pothole, eyewitnesses say.  The truck overturned close to shops as it was travelling through the village of Ahumbe in Benue state on Monday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It reportedly caught fire after an exhaust pipe from a passing bus scraped on the ground, causing sparks to fly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;We have recovered 45 corpses of the dead while 101 others sustained serious burns,&#8221;\u00a0Aliyu Baba, the federal road safety commission sector commander for Benue state, said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;From the look of things and considering their condition, many of them might not survive,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>People had gathered around the crashed tanker after the crash, with some attempting to salvage fuel, witnesses say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite warnings from security personnel to stay away from the vehicle, many were caught up in the subsequent explosion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Similar incidents are relatively common in Nigeria, a country where many people live in poverty despite the country&#8217;s multi-billion-dollar oil and gas industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fires and explosions often occur due to badly maintained roads or because people attempt to siphon off fuel from tankers and pipelines.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In January, at least eight people were killed in Odukpani, in the southeastern state of Cross River, when an overturned tanker exploded while people were scooping up its leaking fuel.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That incident came after\u00a060 people were killed last October when a spill at an oil pipeline in the country&#8217;s southeast caught fire. &#8212; NNN-AFRICANEWS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ABUJA, July 3 (NNN-AFRICANEWS) &#8212; At least 50 people were killed in Nigeria when fuel from a crashed truck that they were siphoning up caught fire, a spokesman for the governor in central Benue state said. \u201cA tanker loaded with fuel fell Monday and people were scooping its products when it caught fire, killing over [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[213],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31111"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}