A massive explosion has killed at least 98 people and severely injured dozens more after an oil tanker truck exploded near the capital city of Sierra Leone, a country in West Africa.
The explosion occurred just as large crowds of people were gathering around the truck in an attempt to collect leaking fuel. The truck began to leak after it collided with another truck while pulling into a gas station near a busy intersection in Wellington, east of the capital city, Freetown.
“Both drivers came out of their vehicles and warned community residents to stay off the scene while trying to address a leakage emanating from the collision,” the National Disaster Management Agency said.
As Sierra Leone is a deeply impoverished country, crowds of people ignored the warnings and rushed in to try to collect the fuel.
At the moment, it is not known what caused the leaking fuel to ignite, which ultimately caused the massive explosion.
According to officials, nearly 100 injured people were transported to hospitals in the area. Foday Musa, a staff member in the intensive care unit at Connaught Hospital, has reported that around 30 severely burned people in the unit are not expected to survive.
A video obtained by The Associated Press shows a massive fireball burning in the sky, as well as charred remains of the victims that were strewn about at the scene. In the background of the video, survivors with severe burns can be heard crying out in pain.
Crowds gathered outside of the main gates of the local mortuary and outside of the hospital’s main entrance, waiting to hear news about their loved ones.
According to reporting from NPR, “Hospital officials called in as many doctors and nurses as they could overnight to tend to the wounded. The country’s health care sector is still recovering from the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic, which killed many of the West African nation’s doctors and nurses.”
Sierra Leone President Julius Maada Bio was in Scotland for the United Nations climate talks at the time of the explosion. In a statement, he mourned the “horrendous loss of life.”
“My profound sympathies with families who have lost loved ones and those who have been maimed as a result,” he tweeted.
The country’s vice president, Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh, visited two hospitals caring for the victims, and announced that Sierra Leone’s National Disaster Management Agency and others would “work tirelessly” in the wake of the emergency.
“We are all deeply saddened by this national tragedy, and it is indeed a difficult time for our country,” he said in a post on his Facebook page.
