Lagos ship explosion kills workers

LAGOS, Nigeria -- Up to 10 people are feared dead after an explosion ripped through a ship under repair in Lagos, say port police.

Fire fighters battled for hours to contain the fire, the independent Comet newspaper reported.

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Senior police officials told The Associated Press that no more than 10 people had been killed.

Other reports put the number at five dead but it is feared that the number of casualties could be much higher because no one is sure how many people were taking part in repairs on the ship.

A Nigerian Ports Authority Police official told Reuters that four bodies had been found but police had not been able to search the scene.

The vessel -- Real Progress -- is berthed in the Ijora fishing jetty in Lagos.

It had been moored for repairs for 10 weeks and petrol was being pumped onto the ship through a pipe, the Comet reported.

"There were crew members, contractors, suppliers, friends, hawkers on the ship ... we were many up there," it quoted one man.

He said he had been thrown off the ship's deck where he was drilling by the force of the explosion.

"We were welding," the newspaper quoted another man it named as Johnson as saying.

He said he left the ship 10 minutes before the explosion.

"I was working with oxygen, cutting through some steel while other were using fire induced appliances," he said.

Nigeria, one of the world's major oil producers, has a tragic history of gasoline-fed fires with many of the accidents involving mishandling or blackmarket sales of fuel in makeshift containers.

Police said they were still investigating the cause of the explosion.