Pretoria - Seventeen people were killed and 25 injured after a gas explosion in Nigeria's Lagos state on Sunday which damaged more than 50 buildings, the Daily Post reported.
Hundreds of resident were left homeless and several vehicles parked in the area were also destroyed by the explosion, it said.
The Daily Post quoted the director-general of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA), Femi Oke-Osanyintolu, as saying a Catholic church was among the buildings reduced to a rubble, with dead bodies found in the debris.
“The LASEMA response team arrived at the incident scene and it was discovered that a raging fire had displaced several residents who fled their abodes for fear of being caught up in the inferno. The primary cause of the explosion is yet unknown," Oke-Osanyintolu said.
“There are a number of secondary explosions which have caused significant damage to multiple buildings including the levelling of a church to the ground and the destruction of St. Margaret’s girls hostel."
“The causes are yet to be determined, while security agents are investigating the cause of the explosion,” Oke-Osanyintolu added.
The Daily Post said Chief Solomon Ogbonna from Lagos State had called on the state government to conduct a thorough investigation into the explosion.
Resident Japheth Okafor told the News Agency of Nigeria that he narrowly escaped death from the explosion, after an alarm raised by his boss prompted him and others to escape through a window.
“Before the explosion, the sky changed to white and we started perceiving gas odour, few minutes after, there was an explosion," Okafor was quoted saying.
“My boss screamed and asked us to jump through the window. That was how we escaped this morning."
The impact of the explosion was reportedly felt kilometres away in Lagos with the windows of some houses being shattered.