Scores Dead in Nigerian Fuel Truck Explosion
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iStockphoto/Thinkstock(LAGOS, Nigeria) — At least 95 people were killed Thursday in Nigeria while siphoning oil from a fuel truck that had crashed on a highway. Authorities say the victims died when the truck exploded.
A spokesman for Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency said residents from a nearby village were catching leaking fuel from the wrecked tanker truck with makeshift containers when the vehicle exploded.
Nigeria is the top crude oil producer in Africa and the fourth-largest supplier of oil to the U.S., but its lack of proper roads in the country’s oil-rich swampland is responsible for countless deadly accidents.
In 2010, more than 200 people died when a wrecked tanker truck exploded into flames as they approached.
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