At least five people were feared dead and many injured in the late
hours of the morning Wednesday, as an oil barge offloading products at
the MRS Jetty located at the Tin Can Island Port, Apapa Lagos exploded
into flames.
The high degree explosion, which happened at about 11.30 am shattered
glass doors and windows of buildings as far as 500 metres away from the
jetty, including the administrative building of the Nigerian Ports
Authority (NPA), Ports and Cargo complex and a branch of First Bank
situated over 500 metres away from the scene.
Our correspondent gathered that the incident occurred after a barge, a
small ship bringing in fuel from the mother ship and offloading into
the MRS tank farm was improperly handled. The Department of Petroleum
Resources (DPR) confirmed the barge was bearing petroleum motor spirit
(PMS) commonly known as fuel.
When LEADERSHIP visited the MRS complex at 12.30pm, business
activities at the port have come to a halt, with people settling in
small groups and discussing the incident, which was said to have caused
stampede at the port.
Officials of MRS were not available for comment and the place was
filled with security operatives who barred newsmen from entering the
facility. Our correspondent however sighted officials of the National
Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), fire-fighting vehicles belonging to
neighbouring Integrated Oil Services and the Lagos State Fire Service,
which came in at 1.26pm.
An eyewitness said he saw at least five lifeless bodies wrapped in
white cloths and taken away to an unknown morgue before he was asked to
leave the premises.
Willem Auret, who witnessed the blast from a ship on its way to Snake
Island in Apapa, said he saw a tanker barge catch fire at about 11:00
local time (10:00 GMT). "The fire started slowly and then expanded into
chaos, exploding more than once," he told the BBC.
"After the initial explosion, which I caught on camera, there was a secondary explosion," he said.
It took about an hour and a half for the port authorities to arrive on the scene, he said.
"First one tugboat arrived... then several others joined it in an
attempt to extinguish the fire. They seem to have the fire under control
now."
Nema's Akande Iyiola told the BBC that the oil depot at Tin Can
Island port where the explosion occurred was owned by the petroleum
company MRS Oil.
"I felt the explosion from where we are," Charles Osagie, who works at an import-and-export office in the district, told AFP.
Additional report from BBC
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