Sierra Leone tanker blast claims scores of lives

DPA Freetown At least 99 people have been killed in a collision between a fuel tanker and a lorry in the West African country of Sierra Leone. More than 90...

DPAFreetownAt least 99 people have been killed in a collision between a fuel tanker and a lorry in the West African country of Sierra Leone.More than 90 other people were injured, Vice President Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh said on Saturday after visiting the scene of the accident.The accident occurred on Friday evening in a busy street in the capital Freetown.Some surrounding shops and cars caught fire, they said. The local television station AYV spoke of 400 victims on Saturday morning. President Julius Maada Bio, who was attending the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow on Friday, was expected in Freetown shortly, a government spokesperson said.Due to the “tragic accident,” Bio had cancelled a planned trip to a meeting of the West African Economic Community ECOWAS in Ghana.Victims included people who had flocked to collect fuel leaking from the ruptured vehicle, Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, mayor of the port city, said in a post on Facebook. Several badly burned victims lay on the streets as flames blazed through shops and houses nearby, unverified social media images showed. “The video and photo footage making rounds on social media are harrowing,” Aki-Sawyerr said.The extent of damage to property was as yet unknown, the mayor said, adding that police and her deputy were at the scene to assist disaster management officials.“We’ve got so many casualties, burned corpses,” said Brima Bureh Sesay, head of the National Disaster Management Agency, in a video from the scene shared online. “It’s a terrible, terrible accident.”Omar Fofana, a journalist speaking from the scene of the explosion, said that dozens of people have admitted at various hospitals, Al Jazeera reported. Health services have been stretched, with hospitals “asking for everything that they need to be able to respond,” he added. Fofana said that many people were sitting in heavy traffic when the explosion happened. “Many of those who died, or were burned, were burned inside their vehicles,” he said.According to Fofana, an emergency response meeting is expected to take place later on Saturday, which will be chaired by the country’s vice president.President Julius Maada Bio, who was in Scotland attending the United Nations climate talks, deplored the “horrendous loss of life”.“My profound sympathies with families who have lost loved ones and those who have been maimed as a result,” he wrote on Twitter.