People were collecting fuel from tanker that had crashed when it blew up, according to local police

More than 140 people have died in an explosion while rushing to scoop up fuel from a crashed tanker in north-west Nigeria, in one of the country’s worst such incidents in recent times.

Local authorities said the vehicle crashed late on Tuesday night after the driver lost control on the Kano-Hadejia expressway near the town of Majiya in Jigawa state. It then exploded while onlookers were scooping spilt fuel with cups and buckets.

Official says dead given mass burial after after collision in Agaie area of north-central Niger state

A fuel tanker has collided head on with another truck in Nigeria, causing an explosion that killed at least 48 people, the country’s emergency response agency has said.

The tanker was also carrying cattle in the Agaie area in north-central Niger state, at least 50 of which were burned alive, Abdullahi Baba-Arab, director-general of the Niger State Emergency Management Agency, said. He added that search and rescue operations were under way at the scene of the accident.

Baba-Arab said initially that 30 bodies were found, but in a later statement said an additional 18 bodies of victims who were burned to death in the collision were found. He said the dead had been given a mass burial.

Mohammed Bago, the governor of Niger state, said residents of the affected area should remain calm and asked road users to “always be cautious and abide by road traffic regulations to safeguard lives and property”.

In the absence of an efficient railway system to transport cargo, fatal truck accidents are common along most of the major roads in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country.

In 2020 alone, there were 1,531 gasoline tanker crashes, resulting in 535 fatalities and 1,142 injuries, according to Nigeria’s Federal Road Safety Corps.

More than 154 people were initially reported trapped under the rubble but police say 132 have been rescued and treated for injuries

A school in north-central Nigeria collapsed during morning classes on Friday, initially trapping about 154 students and setting off a frantic search for those in the rubble. Authorities say 22 died.

The two-storey Saints Academy college in Plateau state’s Busa Buji community caved in shortly after students, many of whom were 15 or younger, arrived for classes.