Nigeria tanker truck blast toll rises to 86

The death toll from the explosion of a petrol tanker truck in Nigeria that killed people rushing to gather fuel has risen to 86, emergency services said Sunday.

The truck carrying 60,000 litres (nearly 16,000 gallons) of gasoline exploded after flipping over on a road in the centre of the country on Saturday, authorities said.

Rescuers had previously put the toll at 70 dead.

"We buried 86 burnt corpses between 12:00 pm yesterday to 2:00 am of today," said Ibrahim Audu Husseini, spokesman for the Niger state's emergency management agency.

"It took us 14 hours to bury the bodies because we couldn't get excavators and had to get locals to dig the mass grave manually."

He said 52 other people suffered "severe burns from the explosion".

The blast struck at the Dikko junction on the road linking the federal capital Abuja to the northern city of Kaduna.

A crowd of people rushed to the spot where the tanker had turned over in search of fuel, whose price has soared in an economic crisis.

"I saw a woman carrying a gallon of fuel and the gallon exploded and the fuel splashed over me," Dalandi Abdullahi, told AFP from the hospital treating his flame-ravaged arms and torso.