MOROGORO (Tanzania): Sixty people perished in Tanzania yesterday when a fuel tanker exploded after overturning on a road west of the country’s economic capital Dar es Salaam, police said.
The disaster took place near the town of Morogoro, with police saying the blast may have been sparked by a cigarette as people rushed to collect leaking fuel from the stricken truck.
“There was a huge blast which has so far killed at least 60 people,” regional police chief Willbrod Mtafungwa told reporters.
Witnesses told AFP by telephone that they saw the charred remains of a number of motorcycle taxis and trees scorched by the power of the explosion.
Mtafungwa said the dead were mainly drivers of the taxis known as “boda-boda” and local residents flocking to the scene for the fuel after the tanker crashed.
Police later announced the blaze had been brought under control.
“The Morogoro region had never experienced a disaster of such magnitude,” Morogoro governor Stephen Kebwe told reporters at the scene in the locality of Msamvu, about 200 kilometres west of Dar es Salaam. – AFP
