No fewer than eight hospitalised victims of the pipeline fire incident in the Ijegun area of Lagos State have reportedly succumbed to death as a result of the severe burns they suffered.
The inferno resulted from an explosion at a vandalised point of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation’s product pipeline in the Ijegun area of the Igando-Ikotun Local Council Development Area on Thursday, which led to the death of two persons, while scores of residents were injured and properties worth several millions of naira destroyed.
Despite frantic efforts by doctors to save the victims, Naijaskit learnt that a mechanic, Murphy Afolabi; his wife, Rashidat; their three-year-old son, Ridwan; and their daughter, Opeyemi; as well as Idayat Mondiu; her daughter, identified simply as Iya Jumoke, all gave up the ghost.
A couple, identified simply as Daddy and Mummy Warris, were also said to have passed away where they were being treated three days after the fuel spillage and the attendant fire.
Footage in the possession of our correspondent showed how some of the hospitalised victims were writhing in pain as they were being bandaged from head to toe due to the severity of the burns they suffered.
Naijaskit had reported that the spillage occurred when some yet-to-be identified vandals were ambushed by security agents, while scooping fuel from a punctured NNPC pipeline.
The vandals, in an attempt to escape from the scene, were said to have left the punctured point open as fuel spilled all over the area, including the drainage channel connecting Irede Street and the canal on the Catholic Church Street.
While an account had it that the vandals set the spilled fuel on fire in order to escape arrest, another stated that a motorist, who had attempted to start his engine in the area, caused the explosion.
Mondiu’s family of 12, Afolabi’s family of seven and the Warris’ family of four, among others, were said to be asleep in their various homes around the canal on the Catholic Church Street when the incident occurred and were burnt by the raging inferno.
They were all hospitalised at the Gbagada General Hospital and the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, while the surviving members of the families were said to be battling to survive the tragedy.
