Over 200 die in tanker explosion in DR Congo
BUKAVU:
A fuel truck exploded and set fire to a village in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, killing at least 221 people and injuring almost an equal number, the Red Cross said Saturday.
Flames engulfed dozens of earth and straw constructed homes after villagers, many of them children, crowded around the tanker which overturned late on Friday.
Helicopters provided by the United Nations mission in the country evacuated injured villagers to hospital, officials said.
Desire Kama from the Congolese Red Cross said according to a provisional estimate at 1100 GMT, there were 221 deaths – of whom 61 were children – and 214 were injured.
A UN mission source told AFP on condition of anonymity that five Pakistani troops were among the dead, but this was denied by MONUSCO’s spokesman Madnodje Mounoubai, who said no UN soldiers were among the victims.
Director-General Inter-Services Public Relations Major General Athar Abbas also refuted media reports about the death of Pakistani peacekeepers, saying that they were all safe. He said that the troops were part of the rescue operation.
A military source in MONUSCO’s command said he had no reports of any victims from the peacekeeping mission and said verification was going on with units present in the zone.
“What is certain is that the toll will get higher. It seems that what happened was truly horrible,” the source said on condition of anonymity, adding that the search was still going on “for more charred bodies.”
“A tanker truck coming from Tanzania overturned in the village of Sange. There was a crush [of people] and a petrol leak, there was an explosion of fuel oil which spread through the village,” regional government spokesman Vincent Kabanga told AFP.
Dozens of homes in Sange were caught in the blaze after the accident, which a police officer said had been caused by the truck’s “excessive speed.”
The officer, who asked not to be named, added that many of those who surrounded the vehicle before it exploded were children. He said the locals were trying to gather the oil from the tanker, when the explosion occurred, adding that Sange was now “in total mourning.”
A UN officer who arrived at the site on Saturday morning said: “The bodies are charred. It’s horrible, there are still flames above the truck.”
MONUSCO – officially kno-wn as the United Nations’ Organisation for Stabilisation in Democratic Republic of Congo – is the world’s largest and most expensive peacekeeping operation with an annual budget of 1.35 billion dollars. Most of its troops are deployed in the country’s volatile east.
The mission, earlier known by its French acronym MONUC, has been present in DR Congo since the end of 1999.
According to Reuters, there have been numerous similar accidents across Africa, where fuel crowds gather around fuel tankers involved in crashes, only for the tankers to explode.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 4th, 2010.
A fuel truck exploded and set fire to a village in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, killing at least 221 people and injuring almost an equal number, the Red Cross said Saturday.
Flames engulfed dozens of earth and straw constructed homes after villagers, many of them children, crowded around the tanker which overturned late on Friday.
Helicopters provided by the United Nations mission in the country evacuated injured villagers to hospital, officials said.
Desire Kama from the Congolese Red Cross said according to a provisional estimate at 1100 GMT, there were 221 deaths – of whom 61 were children – and 214 were injured.
A UN mission source told AFP on condition of anonymity that five Pakistani troops were among the dead, but this was denied by MONUSCO’s spokesman Madnodje Mounoubai, who said no UN soldiers were among the victims.
Director-General Inter-Services Public Relations Major General Athar Abbas also refuted media reports about the death of Pakistani peacekeepers, saying that they were all safe. He said that the troops were part of the rescue operation.
A military source in MONUSCO’s command said he had no reports of any victims from the peacekeeping mission and said verification was going on with units present in the zone.
“What is certain is that the toll will get higher. It seems that what happened was truly horrible,” the source said on condition of anonymity, adding that the search was still going on “for more charred bodies.”
“A tanker truck coming from Tanzania overturned in the village of Sange. There was a crush [of people] and a petrol leak, there was an explosion of fuel oil which spread through the village,” regional government spokesman Vincent Kabanga told AFP.
Dozens of homes in Sange were caught in the blaze after the accident, which a police officer said had been caused by the truck’s “excessive speed.”
The officer, who asked not to be named, added that many of those who surrounded the vehicle before it exploded were children. He said the locals were trying to gather the oil from the tanker, when the explosion occurred, adding that Sange was now “in total mourning.”
A UN officer who arrived at the site on Saturday morning said: “The bodies are charred. It’s horrible, there are still flames above the truck.”
MONUSCO – officially kno-wn as the United Nations’ Organisation for Stabilisation in Democratic Republic of Congo – is the world’s largest and most expensive peacekeeping operation with an annual budget of 1.35 billion dollars. Most of its troops are deployed in the country’s volatile east.
The mission, earlier known by its French acronym MONUC, has been present in DR Congo since the end of 1999.
According to Reuters, there have been numerous similar accidents across Africa, where fuel crowds gather around fuel tankers involved in crashes, only for the tankers to explode.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 4th, 2010.