Nigeria fears fuel crisis after pipeline tragedy

LAGOS, Nigeria (Reuters) -- Nigerian fire crews fought late into Thursday night to douse a gasoline pipeline blaze near Lagos which killed more than 60 people close to the country's biggest depot for imported oil products.

State-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corp (NNPC) which owns the depot faced further criticism over a string of tragedies at its facilities.

The oil-producing country of over 110 million people is gripped by a crippling gasoline shortage which can only get worse with the latest blaze coming just before the heavily travelled Christmas period.

The tragedy struck at Ebute-Oko, a fishing village opposite the central business district of Lagos across a lagoon. Villagers said the pipeline carrying gasoline from the NNPC's nearby Atlas Cove jetty had been leaking for nearly two months.

"We are tired of complaining," an elderly resident told state television.

"At least 60 people died in this needless fire," senior local official Karimu Alabi said at the scene.

Many of the dead were fishermen incinerated alive in their dugout canoes as fire spread rapidly along the line of the oil leak.

Witnesses said the fire was ignited by a wood stove where a a woman was cooking in the open as oil spread along the beach.

The blaze swept through a cluster of ramshackle log cabins, killing villagers and women preparing to take fish to market.

Almost simultaneously, a separate fire ravaged Makoko shantytown where thousands of fishermen and their families live in wood houses on stilts in the lagoon near Lagos University. There were no reports of deaths there.

Residents said Makoko inhabitants had been scooping up leaking gasoline from the burst pipeline and storing it in jerrycans in their wood cabins.

Some badly burned victims from Ebute-Oko were brought to Makoko in canoes, only to find their homes burned out.

Nigeria, Africa's biggest oil exporter, has been plagued by oil fires that have killed hundreds of people over the past two years, mostly in the Nigeria Delta which produces most of the country's crude. The last such blaze was on July 10, when at least 250 villagers scavenging fuel from a pipeline died when the fuel exploded.

NNPC blames the disasters on oil thieves who puncture pipelines criss-crossing the country to tap gasoline for sale on the thriving black market.

Fuel scarcity has been a regular feature of Nigerian life for years due to neglect of the country's four refineries during years of corrupt military rule. NNPC is forced to import large quantities of oil products.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

See related sites about Africa

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.