OilVoice - Over 100 Die after Kenyan Fuel Tanker Blaze

Over 100 Die after Kenyan Fuel Tanker Blaze

Sunday, February 01, 2009

A gasoline tanker that overturned, and then exploded on a Kenyan highway, on Saturday, has claimed the lives of more than one hundred people.

The disaster was the second deadly inferno in Kenya is more than a week, following a catastrophic blaze in a supermarket, on Wednesday.

Reports claim that as the tanker, carrying high-grade gasoline, overturned opportunist looters tried to scoop up the spilled fuel, to devastating consequence. The tanker had been travelling near to the town of Molo, in the Rift Valley (some 95 miles northwest of Nairobi) when the crash occurred at around 7 p.m.

According to reports the slow response time of the emergency services is partly to blame for the tragedy. As word spread of the incident a wave of poverty-stricken locals descended upon the truck. Kenyan police officers attempted to starve of the siphoning onslaught, but clashes sparked one malicious looter into retaliating by throwing a lit match into a pool of gasoline; pandemonium ensued.

The death toll, which currently stands at 113 according to the Kenya Red Cross, continues to rise. Another 178 victims are reported to have been severely burned by the incident.

Hassan Noor Hassan, the Rift Valley provincial commissioner for the government said: "Kenyans are obsessed with free things… you shouldn't rush to your death for 10 litres of fuel." What Mr. Hassan failed to acknowledge in this equation were the levels of poverty that surround him in his region.

While the local media has been quick to criticise the government for its appalling response time to the disaster, the Kenyan Prime Minister, Raila Odinga, has hit back saying: "This being a rural area, there was no response by any disaster team because there is no such team."

Sadly the disaster is far from unique; fuel blasts are also common in oil-rich Nigeria, where residents are known to attempt to tap petrol pipelines to take fuel for cooking or resale on the black market. In 2006, a pipeline blast killed around 200 people in Nigeria.

Kenyan police spokesman, Eric Kiraithe, said that the exact events of the incident are still being investigated. Meanwhile extra supplies, including body bag and medicine, have been flow in from Nairobi by helicopter.