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By Tony Edike
Friday, July 30, 2004
ENUGU—TRAGEDY struck at Agbani, the hometown of Governor Chimaroke Nnamani of Enugu State yesterday, where seven persons were severely burnt by oil pipeline fire that resulted from the vandalisation of Pipelines in the area. The petroleum pipelines from Port Harcourt to Enugu were vandalized at kilometer 190.5 in Ogbeke Agbani, Nkanu West Local Government Area, by unknown persons Wednesday night who scooped fuel into petroleum tankers through a valve drilled into the pipeline. Sources told Vanguard that shortly after the vandals left the scene, fuel continued to flow from the valve until the entire area was flooded and thereby attracted residents of the town who continued to scoop fuel till the early hours of yesterday.
But trouble started for them when one of them described as a palm-wine taper arrived the scene with a lantern in a bid to participate in the business of scooping fuel, but the fire immediately ignited the fuel, which was flowing into a nearby stream. All the people within the scene whose bodies were soaked with fuel, were seriously burnt by the fire, which continued until press time yesterday. An eyewitness who narrated the incident to Vanguard at Agbani said: “We live very close to the place but I did not go there because I have heard how dangerous scooping fuel from such pipelines could be. I decided to stay away. But some of our people went there and fetched fuel throughout last night after they discovered that petrol was flowing from the pipeline. But towards the early hours of this morning, we started hearing people screaming from the area that they were burnt by fire".
“When we rushed to the scene, we discovered that several people were burnt and sympathizers helped and conveyed them to the hospitals within Agbani. You can see that the fire is still burning because the fuel has not stopped flowing from the pipeline. The situation was very terrible.”
At Agbani General Hospital where some of the victims were rushed, a staff told Vanguard that two persons, a man and his son, were brought to the hospital with high-degree burns, but were later transferred to the National Orthopaedic Hospital, Enugu where their case could be properly handled. “They were badly roasted and we could not handle their case here, so we referred them to the Orthopaedic hospital. We could not admit more victims here because we don’t have the necessary facility”, he said.
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