Report

Subject:                     Kenya Oil Spill Kills 111, Injures Hundreds More

Date of Email report:   Sun 01/02/2009

Report Detail:

At least 100 people have died in Kenya after an overturned petrol tanker caught fire on a highway and exploded.
Reports say the fire broke out after hundreds of people gathered to collect spilled fuel. Dozens of people have also been injured in the blaze, in the town on Molo. Officials expect he death toll to rise. The cause of the fire is not clear. Some reports said it was caused by a lit cigarette, but others said it had been started deliberately. One woman at the scene said her two sons had run to collect petrol after the tanker crashed and she had not been able to find them. "I tried to stop them but they did not listen, they told me everyone is going there for the free fuel," she told Reuters. I saw a crowd at the scene of the accident, then I rushed there when I heard there was fuel," said one man caught in the fire. "I had taken the first jerrycan back to my home and when I came back for the second, I heard an explosion and it was like we all caught fire, I don't even know how I got here," Michael Kerich told AFP news agency at a hospital in Nakuru. Rift Valley police provincial commissioner Hassan Noor Hassan said there were 91 bodies at the site and a further 20 had been taken to a local mortuary. He has ordered 150 body bags to be delivered to Molo. Interior Minister George Saitoti said four policemen were among those killed.

'Slow response'
Kenya Red Cross spokesman Titus Mung'ou told Reuters news agency the fire could have been started by someone dropping a cigarette. But Mr Noor said the fire may have been lit by people whom the police were trying to keep away from the petrol. "We don't exactly know how the fire started because the allegation is that somebody got annoyed with the way they were being chased away from the place by security personnel and lit the fire, others are saying the fire started accidentally," he said. "But, however, in the process there was an explosion, there was fire everywhere and we have bodies littered all over this place." The Nation newspaper has criticised what it said was a slow official response to the fire, which was still reported to be burning several hours later. "The Nakuru Municipal Council's fire engine arrived at the scene more than an hour after the explosion," said the newspaper, adding that Molo itself has no fire engine. The BBC's Peter Greste, in Nairobi, says Kenya's emergency services have a poor record for public safety standards. The incident comes just days after a devastating fire at a supermarket in the Kenyan capital Nairobi killed at least 25 people.Kenyan media also criticised the emergency response to that disaster, calling it slow and inadequate.

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