Poor Nigerians scavenge fuel at Lagos pipeline blaze site

LAGOS, Nigeria (Reuters) -- Residents of shantytowns around Nigeria's coastal capital of Lagos scavenged for fuel Monday around a ruptured oil products pipeline that killed more than 60 people when it caught fire last week.

Reuters Television and photo journalists saw hundreds of people with buckets and cans scooping up diesel from the broken pipeline and ferrying it off in dugout canoes.

The fire broke out last Thursday and was put out on Saturday. Most of the dead were from the Ebute-Oko fishing village, just across a lagoon from Nigeria's commercial capital.

Villagers who fled the inferno have been returning to their devastated homes despite the relentless flow of gasoline and diesel from the unrepaired leak. Local chiefs said they feared another disaster.

"People have taken to scooping up the diesel because there is no other means of livelihood," said villager Toyin Adeniyi. "Our waters have been contaminated by the fuel and we can't go fishing on the high seas."

The stricken village is close to state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corp.'s (NNPC) biggest jetty for imported refined products at Atlas Cove.

The diesel gushing out of the broken pipeline formed a large pool in the shallow waters of the lagoon, where fishermen were incinerated in their boats Thursday.

Oil-producing Nigeria has been forced to import large quantities of products because of the poor state of its own four domestic refineries.

A handful of local security men guarding the Atlas Cove jetty, stood by as the villagers created a mini market on water to sell fuel.

Villagers said fresh pipeline leaks were noticed Saturday. But no security force personnel or officials of NNPC, the pipeline's owners, were anywhere in sight.

"We have tried to meet officials of the NNPC on the damaged pipeline but to no avail," the traditional head of the village, Akwete Amusa, told Reuters.

The Ebute-Oko disaster was the latest in a string of oil fires in recent years that have killed hundreds of people, mainly in the oil-producing Niger Delta.

The dead generally have been villagers scrambling for gasoline from ruptured pipelines, some deliberately punctured by fuel thieves.

NNPC blames what it calls syndicates of well-organized product thieves for attacks on pipelines and the resulting accidents.

The head of the NNPC's pipelines subsidiary was quoted by state television as saying repair teams trying to seal the nearly two-month-old leak near Lagos had been deterred by oil thieves.

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

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