Posted on 12/26/2006 4:56:16 AM PST by maquiladora
LAGOS, Dec 26 (Reuters) - Up to 500 people may have been killed in an explosion at a fuel pipeline in Nigeria's largest city, Lagos, the Nigerian Red Cross said.
"It is a densely populated area. We are talking hundreds (dead). Sixty have been evacuated to hospital, badly burned. We are yet to confirm the death toll so we don't know if it is 300, 400 or 500," Red Cross secretary-general Abiodun Orebiyi said.
Trying to steal the gas by cutting the pipe again?
You know, the signs clearly state that you need to shut off your engine before refueling.
Terrible.
Glad to see the Christmas spirit is alive and well.
What an awful way to go.
Is this attempted theft or terrorism?
CNN just confirmed my suspicion.
Lighten up.
chestnuts roasted on an open fire I guess..
It's apparently unclear how many were killed. At least 200, maybe even 1000.
They were thiefs who engaged in risky behavior, breaking into a gasoline pipeline and trying to loot it.
I have sympathy for the root causes that made the thiefs do this, but I'm kinda thinking Nigeria is better off without a few hundred looters.
These are the stories that need to have boilerplate article templates written up.
"Nigerian Pipeline Explosion - XXX Dead"
Just fill in the blanks with the details, since they happen so often.
The other one would be:
"Muslim Outrage as XXX"
From BBC:
The blast in the Abule Egba area happened as hundreds of people were scooping fuel from a pipeline punctured by thieves, officials said.
Some 2,000 people have died in similar incidents in the past decade.
Up to 500 killed in Lagos fuel blast
It has been confirmed that the people killed were looting the fuel after thieves had punctured the lines so they could steal the petrol.
Hundreds of residents of the Abule Egba district went to scoop fuel using plastic containers after thieves punctured the underground pipeline overnight to siphon fuel into a road tanker, locals said.
Bush's fault.
PC is alive and well on FR. They were filling their buckets with free gasoline if it is the usual mass explosion casualty event.
Both. Terrorists blew up the pipeline, then the bucket brigade gathered.
I believe that you're dead wrong about the looting that caused this explosion being the same thing as the asshats that rob stores during riots in the US. Lagos is the rectum of the world, where it's business as usual to see a dead body or two on your way to work, but the oil majors make billions pumping crude, with absolutely squat going to the locals...
I work for big oil. I've worked in Nigeria. It's a disease-ridden dump badly in need of being walled off.
Anyhow, my point is that the bloated coddled scum that loot stores here in the US are the richest and fattest poor people in the world. Comparing them to the poor buggers living in a famine economy is pretty harsh, IMO.
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