Dozens feared dead in Nigeria as leaking oil tanker explodes

Police and witnesses say many people are dead in Nigeria after an oil tanker overturned and exploded while people were scooping up leaking fuel.

Police spokeswoman Irene Ugbo tells The Associated Press that 12 people are dead and 22 badly burned in the blast Friday evening in Odukpani in Cross River state.

But some residents put the death toll closer to 60.

Witness Richard Johnson says many people were burnt to ashes, leaving little to recover. 

He says dozens of people had been scooping up fuel and it was unlikely any survived the blast.

Johnson suggests the blast was caused by an electrical generator brought to the scene to help pump the fuel.

Hundreds of people have died in similar accidents in recent years in Nigeria, Africa's largest oil producer.

In 2007, at least 45 people were killed in Lagos when fuel they were sip honing from a buried pipeline caught fire. In 2006, another pipeline ruptured by thieves caught fire, killing about 260.

In 2015, a tanker truck exploded outside an industrial plant in the city of Nnewi, in Anambra State, in rural southeastern Nigeria, killing dozens of people who had lined up for gas to cook their Christmas meals.

Nigeria’s worst such accident occurred in 1998, when more than 1,000 people died as a leaking oil pipeline from which they were scooping fuel exploded in the town of Jesse.