The danger in setting up gas stations in wrong places was brutally witnessed by Nigerians in Lafia, Nasarawa State last Monday, when an explosion in a gas station claimed about nine lives. JOSEPH ENNA reports on the human errors that caused the tragedy and how hoodlums profited from other people’s misery.
MONDAY, September 9, 2018 will forever remain indelible in the minds of people of Nasarawa State, particularly residents of Lafia the state capital as a result of the gas explosion that affected scores of people and caused destruction of properties worth millions of naira.
One of the victims of the explosion was a pregnant woman, who was so badly burnt that she had to undergo emergency caesarean section to save the life in her womb. Though when Governor Umaru Tanko Al-Makura visited the victims in hospital on Wednesday he said the baby had died. Sunday Tribune sources insisted that both baby and mother are still alive and well. A twist to the story, however, was that three men are now claiming to be the fathers of the infant in their attempts to obtain financial and material favour from sympathisers.
As of the time of filing this report, efforts are also ongoing to fly some of the victims abroad for medical attention due to severity of their condition.
The incident was reportedly caused by a leaking gas tank stationed inside a fuel station, which was located about 20 meters from the main Jos road in Lafia.
Sunday Tribune gathered the management of the station had discovered that the gas tank was leaking and subsequently reported the matter to the state fire service on Monday morning. Fire officials came and assessed the situation and were said to have advised those close by to vacate the area because the gas had saturated the atmosphere and could result in a fire outbreak.
Witnesses told Sunday Tribune that not quite long after the firemen left, the station was engulfed in flames. A commercial motorcyclist, it was alleged, caused a little spark while allowing the stand of his bike (which should have been clipped to the allotted space in the bike) to hang and drag along the road
It was learnt further that the manager of the station (Monaco Company) had earlier, on Sunday, invited an engineer to try and help fix the leaking gas tank but the efforts failed. He (manager) was said to have alerted all staffers of the company and people around to vacate the area in addition to alerting the state fire service to the problem and the impending disaster.
ALSO READ: Osun agog as full August salary, four months arrears and leave bonuses hit workers account
A Narrow Escape…
Esther Sule Attah is actually thanking her stars because she escaped by the skin of her teeth. She told Sunday Tribune that how the fire started did not escape her attention. According to her it was providence that saved her and many others when the explosion occurred.
“When we came to the shop that fateful Monday morning around 9:30 am, we saw gas coming out from the station and we were asked to leave the place and we decided to leave,” she told Sunday Tribune, as she recounted events leading to the tragedy.
“I was selling fuel by the roadside and there were fire service officials around the station asking people to leave, but the car and all these okada riders refused. It was one okada man that caused the fire. It stated from there and we ran.
“We survived only by the grace of God, because when we were running, the fire was chasing us. I lost everything.”
Mrs Alice Sambo, a dealer in all kinds of wedding accessories, recounted how hoodlums took advantage of the chaos that ensued after the explosion and looted some shops, including hers.
“Some of my neighbours and myself narrowly escaped from our various shops here. We ran away only for us to come back and discover that so many things had been looted in our shops.
Other eyewitnesses who shared their experiences recalled the terror they felt after the explosion and the raging fire that followed. According to Adamu Saibu, he was in his office when he heard a loud bang that sounded like a ‘bomb’. He looked up and saw people scrambling, running and shouting for help. He said he could not contain himself as he had to move closer to the scene of the incident to have a clearer view.
“I was able to rescue two persons [caught in the fire], while the Federal Road Safety Corps conveyed them to the hospital. Many people were burnt beyond recognition, while others died,” he said.
Like Saibu, Jacob Amos, said he was also working in his office when the loud explosion occurred. He, like others, rushed out to see what was happening.
“A lot of people died and many were burnt,” he recalled. “It was difficult to identify most of them. We were the ones who rescued some of the victims even before the Federal Road Safety Corps officers came and took them to the hospital.”
Some of the car dealers operating in the area claimed the fire affected them, that they lost five vehicles and one motorcycle in the outbreak. Narrating his ordeal, one of the dealers who simply identified himself as John, said lives could have been saved if people had heeded warning of the manager who was shouting frantically to alert people to the danger while telling them steer clear of the area.
“When the gas was about to explode, the engineer quickly ran out and informed everybody within the area, shouting that the road should be blocked. But motorcyclists, popularly known as okada riders, ignored him and before they could realise what was happening, the gas exploded and a lot of people were killed or injured,” he lamented.
Another car dealer, Sunday Anthony, who claimed that one of the cars that got burnt in the fire had been paid for, however, said they would need assistance from government to recover their losses. “We are appealing to the Nasarawa State Government and other Nigerians to come to our aid as our business has been liquidated. We don’t know where to start again. Our dreams and hopes have been destroyed by the gas explosion,” he pleaded.
The car dealers association appealed to the state government and public-spirited bodies to come to their aid as “all the capital we invested in the business had been destroyed by the explosion.”
Though Governor Umaru Tanko Al-Makura had commiserated with the victims of the explosion and had ordered restriction of movement around the scene for about a week in order to continue monitoring the station, the reason the fire caused such a large havoc was not lost on the government. Its proximity to residential buildings aggravated the incident. And to provide solution, the state government said it would review law on siting of filling stations to move them at least 100 meters away from residential buildings across the state.
“I just directed a committee to be constituted in order to review the location approval of all these volatile businesses in towns. Those that are already in operation are to also comply with this approval that has a minimal distance of about 100 meters from the nearest settlement,” Governor Al-Makura stated.
Though the Nasarawa State House of Assembly including the state government has said that something would be done to make a law that would restrict sale of gas within residential areas across the state, what remains to be seen is how soon the law would be enacted and if politics would not play a hand in delaying or aborting the enactment of such a law.
and then