Nigerian pipeline explodes, killing 200

  A ruptured gasoline pipeline burst into flames Tuesday as scavengers collected the fuel in Nigeria's largest city, killing more than 200 people. The death toll was expected to rise as rescue workers tried to document more charred corpses.

  Witnesses said thieves had broken into the pipeline after midnight and hundreds of men, women and children had been collecting leaking fuel in plastic buckets, cans and bags for hours before the explosion. It was unclear what ignited the gasoline.

  "This was a preventable tragedy," said Joel Ogundere, a lawyer whose home was next to the blast. "It was poverty, ignorance and greed."

  According to eyewitnesses in the Apapa ferry to the Atlas Creek Island where the blast occurred, they had seen thick black smoke rising from the island this morning, but never thought it could be an oil pipeline explosion and could kill about 200 people.

  Ige Oladimeji, a senior official for the Nigerian Red Cross, said his workers had documented "over 200 and still counting."

  "We can only recognize them through the skulls, the bodies are scattered over the ground," he said. Workers "can't get close enough because the fire is still burning."

Source: AP