A gasoline tanker crashed on Ahoada-Mbiama on the east- west road in Rivers,in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta and caught fire as onlookers tried to scoop up the fuel, killing at least 92 people, a witness has said.

"Early this morning a tanker loaded with petrol fell in Okogbe and people trooped to the scene obviously to scoop the spilled fuel and suddenly there was fire resulting in casualties," Ben Ugwuegbulam, Rivers State police spokesman, said on Thursday.

Ugwuegbulam said it was too early to give a casualty figure but a witness at the scene told the Reuters news agency that he counted 92 dead bodies of men, women and children.

Hundreds of people crowded around as soldiers and emergency workers lifted bodies into ambulances and police trucks. The fuel tanker was a pile of smouldering ash, twisted metal and melting tyres.

Crashes are common on Nigeria's pot-holed and poorly maintained roads, and in a region where most people live on less than $2 a day the chance to collect spilling petrol is too much of a temptation, despite the high risk of fires.

The east-west road, which runs across the oil-producing region, has been scheduled for development for almost a decade and money is allocated for it in the budget each year.

Nigeria, Africa's biggest oil producer, is plagued by corruption and inefficiency. Most years only about half budgeted programmes are implemented.