Dozens killed in Nigeria gas tanker truck explosion

PanARMENIAN.Net - A huge explosion on Thursday, December 24, at a butane gas depot in south-eastern Nigeria left "tens" of people dead, Nigeria's president said, according to BBC News.

The fire raged for more than five hours before being extinguished.

Witnesses said the bodies of workers and customers at the depot in Nnewi in Anambra State had been burned beyond recognition.

Many customers had gone to the plant to fill up their gas bottles to cook meals on Christmas Day.

"My heart and prayers go out to these grieving families at this difficult and painful moment," President Muhammadu Buhari said in a statement.

The dead and injured were taken to the Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital in Nnewi, which has a predominantly Christian community.

Staff inside the plant are reported to have been trapped.

"The fire burned beyond recognition all the workers who were inside that depot at that time and also all the customers inside that depot," Chukwuemerie Uduchukwu, who went to the scene, told the BBC.