By Francis Famoroti, Clara Nwachukwu and Mudiaga Affe
Published: Friday, 16 May 2008
Tragedy struck again in Lagos on Thursday as a two-year-old baby and at least 38 others died when a pipeline explosion tore through a neighbourhood in Ijegun, Alimosho Local Government.

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Bayoor Ewuoso.
Scene of the pipeline explosion in Lagos , on Thursday.

Some of the deceased were said to be students of Ijegun Comprehensive High School.

About 36 people rescued from the scene were taken to a nearby military hospital by rescue workers. An unspecified number of houses and vehicles were also burnt in the incident, which an eyewitness likened to an Armageddon.

“It was like the world was coming to an end. People were running for their lives. Children whose schools are located very close to where the explosion happened did not even know where to run to. Smoke enveloped everywhere,” the witness said.

It was indeed a sad day for many of the residents of the area as they battled to save their belongings amidst tears. Sandals and shoes abandoned by fleeing school children were also seen in their hundreds in the area by our correspondents.

As billows of smoke spiked upward, fire fighters, assisted by bare-chested youths, battled without success to put out the fire with water and sand.

Our correspondents learnt that this time around, the explosion was not caused by pipeline vandals or people trying to scoop fuel, but by an escavator working on a road construction site in the area.

”The pipeline break was not as a result of vandalism. A caterpillar doing some road construction work accidentally broke the pipeline and it caught fire,” said an official of the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company, owners of the pipeline.

“The explosion occurred around 10am. We are yet to identify the company that owned the caterpillar because it was working on our pipeline right of way, which should not have been,” the official, who declined to be named, added.

“After we put out the fire, then we can calculate both human and material losses. The major thing is to put out the fire,” the PPMC official said.

Police authorities in Lagos and the National Emergency Management Agency also could not give the casaulty figure.

While the Lagos State government gave a figure of 14 casualties, the British Broadcasting Corporation reported that 100 lives were lost to the explosion.

But an official of the Nigerian Red Cross put the death toll at 39.

The Spokesman for NEMA, Mr. Abdulsalam Mohammed, confirmed that 36 people were rescued from the scene.

The Deputy Head, Lagos State Fire Service, Mr. Razaq Fadipe, said, “We rescued students and also embarked on safety operations to quell the fire.”

A man, Mr. Olaseni Soewu whose house on 16/18 Ijegun Road was razed, accused the contractor of being careless in handling the project.

Meanwhile, the Lagos State Government has sympathised with victims of the explosion.

The Commissioner for Home Affairs, Mr. Tunde Balogun, told journalists that the state emergency agencies were deployed in the scene immediately the incident was reported.

Balogun, who was in company with Mr. Segun Ayobolu, the Special Adviser on Information to Governor Babatunde Fashola (SAN), added that all hands were still on deck as the fire might take some hours before it could be put out.

In his comment, Ayobolu said that immediately the incident was reported, top officials of the state government, including the Commissioner for Special Duties, Dr. Tola Kasali, and his Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation counterpart, Mrs. Joke Adefulire, rushed to the scene to coordinate rescue operations.

Ayobolu added that the government emergency officials, including the fire service formed protective foam against the spread of the fire.

He said that the state Emergency Medical Agency and the Ambulance Services treated those with minor injuries.

As at 7pm on Thursday, the efforts to quench the fire was still on.

A top management staff at the Atlas Cove Jetty, Taqwa Bay, Lagos Island said, “We have shut down our facility and stopped pumping products through the line known as Systems 2B. We were already pumping products through the lines before the explosion occurred.”

He also could not quantify the losses, saying, “As long as the fire rages, we are incurring losses by the seconds, so it is only when the fire has been put out that we can know how much products we lost.”

Given the spate of low capacity utilisation at the nation‘s four refineries, the Systems 2B Pipeline had become a very important facility, as it accounts for more than 60 per cent of products import received at the Atlas Cove.

Already, operators at the Mosimi Depot have said the fire might lead to scarcity of products in some parts of the country.


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