Lagos — IT was a public holiday. Boxing Day, the day after Christmas is traditionally set aside for visits and exchange of gifts. But for the residents of Awori, a suburb of Lagos, it was a different Boxing Day. It was day of harvest of deaths.

Many who saw the mass of burnt flesh found it difficult to put an exact figure to the dead, but most agree it could not have been fewer than 200.

The victims--males, females, children -- were scooping fuel from a burst pipeline when an unexpected spark led to an explosion. About 80 people are now receiving treatment at the intensive care units of hospitals spread across Lagos.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), whose vandalised pipeline triggered the fire, warned that the current fuel shortage in parts of the country might persist if the fire was not put out and the vandalised portion clamped within three days.

Vanguard's investigation revealed that vandals broke the pipeline and began scooping petrol with Jerry-cans and petroleum tankers on Christmas eve.

However, luck ran against the them yesterday when an explosion occurred, leaving in its wake a raging inferno which could be seen kilometres away.

An eyewitness said the explosion occurred without any warning, soon after Mr. Moruf Adeola Adefolabi, Chairman of Ojokoro Local Development Council had been chased off by the vandals.

The eyewitness, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Adefolabi had reported the activities of the vandals to the police who stormed the area to arrest the situation, but were overwhelmed by the vandals who surged at them in large numbers.

Adefolabi said he acted based on information he got, pointing out that the vandals had been on the spot scooping fuel since 2 am yesterday.

A fire service personnel who was at the site of the incident said over 50 bodies had so far been recovered and taken to the morgue. A countless number of bodies were yet to be recovered.

One of the corpses lying close to the raging fire had a little corpse on its back. It appeared to be those of a mother and her child.

"She was among those carrying fuel. Her husband would go down with a Jerry can, fill it and return it to her for safe keeping," the eyewitness said. When the explosion occurred, she was too close to the scene of the incident and was consumed.

About 30 vehicles within the vicinity were consumed by the explosion. The eyewitness said an open ground facing the site of the explosion was a mechanic garage and that most of the cars that were brought in for repairs were destroyed.

At about 10 am when Mr. Emmanuel Adebayo, the Lagos State Commissioner for Police arrived, the fire was till raging and thousands of people had converged on the scene to witness the disaster.

The Police Commissioner said 500 police personnel had been deployed to the scene to maintain peace. However, the policemen physically present at the scene of the incident were not up to 100.

Nine of those with severe burns at the scene were rushed to Hamkard Hospital and Maternity at Abule Egba.

Dr. Rahman Mudashiru, the Medical Director of the hospital said 14 persons with varying degrees of burns had walked into the hospital, adding that he admitted nine of them and referred five to the General Hospital because the burns they sustained were more severe.

'Products supply to Ibadan'll be affected'

Also speaking on a visit to the scene, Dr. Funso Kupolokun, the Group Managing Director of the NNPC, regretted the loss of lives and urged people to desist from tampering with the pipelines. He said products supply to places like Ibadan would be adversely affected by the incident, adding however, that this would depend on how soon repairs to the pipeline could be effected.

"For 14 days we were not able to pump to Mosimi depot. At the time we had the fire at Ije Ododo, we had about 15 days stock and by the time we put out the fire and clamped the leaks on line, we were virtually at stock-out level. When we finally started pumping yesterday (Monday), we were able to build stock up to five million litres level. Basically, this incident would affect product supply to Ibadan. Hopefully, we should be able to clamp the leak on this line within three days and if this happens, fuel supply and distribution would not be affected," he said.

Vanguard gathered that about a month ago, the community reported a leak on the line to the NNPC zonal office in Lagos and the leak was patched. However, shortly thereafter, the line started leaking again and some people in the area cashed in to make quick money.

Unfortunately, the prevailing fuel scarcity in the country helped to exacerbate the problem, with more and more people cashing into the opportunity provided by the leaking pipeline to scoop fuel.

There were long queues of vehicles at the few filling stations which had fuel in Lagos yesterday, leading to chaotic traffic jams, even on a public holiday.

It's a sign of poverty -- Tinubu

Governor Bola Tinubu of Lagos State accompanied by some of his cabinet members arrived the scene of the incident at about 3.30 pm and sympathised with the people. He however described the incident as an evidence of poverty in the country.

He blamed the officials of NNPC and Federal Government for their neglect of oil pipelines across the states which, according to him, exposed them to vandalisation. "You can see the shame of our nation. A country that is ranked the 8th largest producer of oil in the world is still made to suffer this kind of hardship," he said, adding: "You can see what hunger has turned our people into. We need to be concerned about the life of people not money. It is a sign of poverty.

"I have requested several times from the FG that these pipelines should be kept away from where they are vulnerable to public access. It is not done, we should concern ourselves more about saving life and not making money.

"What has happened today again is not new, it is not strange to us. It is a shame. Look at how dead bodies litter the whole place. It is sad. I sympathise with them. I commend the efforts of the fire fighters for what they have done so far in putting out the ranging fire and securing the place.

"But how do we fight this menace? How do we stop it? Except we fight unemployment, except we fight hopelessness in the country, except we do things right in a good manner."

The Permanent Secretary, Lagos State Ministry of Health, Dr. Jide Idris, said 60 people had been admitted in various hospitals in the state. He said they were in critical conditions as they all sustained 70 per cent secondary degree burns.

Eighteen are at Isolo hospital, 24 at Lagos University Teaching Hospital, 13 at General Hospital, Lagos and four at Gbagada Hospital.

If this fire was caused by organised thieves who vandalised a pipeline to steal fuel on a large scale, those who actually died in the blaze were local residents who decided to help themselves to a jerrycan or two of the fuel that was leaking out.

Many residents were angry, complaining that they had called both the fire service and the police long before the blaze started calling for help because fuel was flowing out of the pipeline, but that help had taken hours to come.

While immediate bystanders appeared shocked and sickened, a couple of streets away it was business as usual, with drivers complaining at being stuck in a traffic jam, beggars trying to cash in on the traffic jam and women balancing dishes of fruit for sale on their heads.

A few kilometres down the road, seemingly unaware of the tragedy, bare-chested youths carrying jerrycans and lengths of plastic hose were offering to fill cars stuck in a queue outside a petrol station.