At least, 37 people have been officially confirmed dead on Tuesday, following the explosion of a petroleum tanker in Ahumbe village, along Makurdi-Aliade-Otukpo highway in Gwer East Local Government Area of Benue State.
Official reports also indicated that 101 people are now receiving treatment in different hospitals across the state as a result of varied degree of burns sustained from the tanker explosion, which occurred about 2:30pm on Monday.
Sector Commander of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) in Benue State, Aliyu Baba, told newsmen in Makurdi, on Tuesday, that the death toll may rise higher as some of the victims were in critical conditions in more than eight hospitals spread across Makurdi and Alaide.
Baba confirmed 36 people dead and 101 injured while one of the hospitals visited in Makurdi confirmed one person dead, bringing the official number of deaths recorded so far to 37.
The Chief Medical Director (CMD) of Benue State Teaching Hospital (BSUTH), , Dr. Terlumun Swende, who confirmed the additional death in his facility, said 10 victims of the fire incident were brought to the hospital on Monday.
He said the victims were severely burnt, stressing that the least of them secured 75 percent lower degree burns and that more critical cases were being referred to other hospitals.
Swende however, added that a team of surgeons, Red Cross and Doctors without borders as well as personnel of BSUTH were working round the clock to salvage the situation.
A relative of one victim, Godwin Ayange, said his 18 year-old brother, Paul, was returning home from school after closing at 2:00pm when the fire caught up with him by the road side.
“My younger brother, a SS2 student of Mbabo community school in Ahumbe, was on his way home after closing from school at 2pm. He was walking along the road side where some people were scooping fuel from a fallen tanker, then suddenly, a passenger bus that was maneuvering its way used its exhaust to scratch the road and that sparked the fire which burnt many people including my brother,” Ayange said.
Meanwhile, Governor Samuel Ortom, through his spokesman, Terver Akase, has expressed deep sadness over the loss of many lives in the fire, describing the incident as quite painful and devastating.
Ortom condoled with families of those who lost their lives in the inferno and prayed God to grant them eternal rest even as he assured survivors of the fire that the state government will assist in paying their medical bills.
