By Segun James
Warri, Nigeria - The death toll in the latest Nigerian oil pipeline blaze climbed to 100 as authorities prepared a mass grave for the victims, government officials and hospital workers said on Tuesday.
The explosion at a ruptured pipeline near the oil town of Warri on Sunday followed less than a week after more than 250 people were killed in a similar disaster 10km away.
In both cases victims were scooping gasoline.
"The casualty figure has increased from more bodies fished from the waters. At the last count, it has been up to 100," said Godwin Abigo, leader of Warri South Local Government parliament.
Workers at Warri General Hospital said 11 of the 15 badly burned people brought in had died.
"There are little chances of survival... They had about 60 degree burns," one doctor.
Scores of villagers have been streaming to the site of the incident to claim the bodies of their relatives after local authorities announced a mass burial for the victims.
"The mass burial is being delayed because villagers are coming in every minute to identify and pick up dead relations," one official said.
At least six more bodies floated on the nearby river, from where fishermen tried to pull them with canoe paddles.
A senior police officer said the pipeline exploded when one of the villagers siphoning gasoline from the pipeline lit a cigarette.
The victims were mostly from Ijala and Isie villages within the precincts of the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) refinery.
Firefighters from NNPC and the navy succeeded in putting out the blaze.
Nigeria's government is battling a rise in attacks on pipelines criss-crossing the country, notably in the oil- producing south.
Communities living close to pipelines have ignored similar disasters and repeated warnings to cash in on a thriving black market for refined products.
But authorities in southern Delta State accused NNPC of complicity in the rising wave of gasoline theft.
"In the latest case, there is no way anyone could have tapped into the pipeline leading from the NNPC premises to a creek without internal connivance from NNPC," a senior police officer in Warri said. - Reuters