An oil tanker capsized in Nigeria as dozens of people carried many fuel leaks and killed many, police and witnesses said on Saturday.
Hundreds of people have died in similar incidents in recent years in Nigeria, Africa's largest oil producer, where poor people risk their lives to collect fuel leaking from pipelines or trucks.
"We found 12 bodies and took 22 severely burned people to the hospital," police spokeswoman Irene Ogbo told The Associated Press. The blast occurred Friday night in Odukpani in Cross River state in the southeast
But some residents said that the death toll was around 60.
"The police only recovered some of the bodies" said PA witness Richard Johnson.
He added that about 60 people were in a hole where the fuel had been buried at the time of the explosion. "It's unlikely anyone inside the hole will be alive and there will be too much fuel in the hole," said Johnson.
He pointed out that the explosion caused by an electric generator had been brought to the scene to help pump gasoline for the containers.
We did not know right away what caused the truck to overturn.
About a year ago, more than 30 citizens were burned in the same area where they were burning fuel from an oil tanker involved in an accident.
The worst incident of this type occurred in Nigeria in 1998, when more than 1,000 people died as a result of the oil pipeline explosion that caused fuel leakage in the city of Jesse.
