Casualties from the pipeline fire explosion at Komkom community in Oyigbo local government area of Rivers State may have risen to 45 as more dead bodies are still being recovered from a nearby swamp in the area.
This is even as families who lost loved ones in the inferno said they have buried their dead.
As at Saturday, casualties from the incident was said to be 20 but more bodies were recovered on Monday.
The explosion occurred on Saturday morning while people of the area were scooping fuel from a pipeline belonging to the Petroleum Products Marketing Company, PPMC, a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.
Engineers from Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, and NNPC had a day before the explosion, inspected a fractured valve on the pipeline.
But, the fractured valve started leaking early on Saturday morning forcing locals to converge at the point to scoop leaking fuel leading to the explosion.
Those said to have died in the explosion were youths below the ages of 30.
Some families reportedly lost two to three members in the inferno while others are still looking for missing relatives whose bodies are still possibly buried in the swamp.
The locals complained that the manual process used by the youths is hampering speedy recovery and called on both the state and the federal government to assist the community in recovering the remaining dead bodies from the swamps.
Meanwhile, it was reported that another fire started on Monday at the scene of the explosion when a damaged pipeline sparked off fresh fire stalling the proposed visit by the joint investigating team of National Oil Spill Detection Agency, NOSDRA and NNPC.
NOSDRA, the government’s agency responsible for oil spill had said it would commence an investigation into the explosion when the fire is properly put off.
Earlier, the chairman of the area, Gerard Oforji had blamed the incidence on negligence from the NNPC/ SPDC engineers who visited the area earlier before the explosion.
