People walk by trucks carrying coffins ahead of a mass burial in Freetown on 8 November 2021, two days after a massive fireball sparked by a fuel tanker explosion killed almost 100 people in Sierra Leone’s capital. Photo: Saidu BAH / AFP
Death toll from Sierra Leone tanker blast rises to 131
“(The) death toll has risen to 131, with 63 people hospitalised,” Lamarana Bah, head of communications at the NDMA
People walk by trucks carrying coffins ahead of a mass burial in Freetown on 8 November 2021, two days after a massive fireball sparked by a fuel tanker explosion killed almost 100 people in Sierra Leone’s capital. Photo: Saidu BAH / AFP
The blast from a fuel tanker that blew up in Sierra Leone’s capital of Freetown last week has now claimed 131 lives, the authorities said Wednesday.
“(The) death toll has risen to 131, with 63 people hospitalised,” Lamarana Bah, head of communications at the National Disaster Management Agency, told AFP.
SIERRA LEONE FUEL TANKER DEATH TOLL
On Monday, the tally was at least 115 dead and 91 injured.
The disaster happened when a lorry crashed into a fuel tanker on Friday in an industrial area of Freetown.
SIERRA LEONE CIVILIANS ENGULFED
A crowd gathered to try to scoop up leaking fuel but the tanker then blew up, engulfing them in a fireball.
President Julius Maada Bio declared three days of mourning as from Sunday.
The country made an appeal for blood donations and bandages, painkillers and infusion fluids for the injured.
AFRICAN COUNTRY STRUGGLING
A former British colony of 7.5 million people, Sierra Leone is one of the poorest countries in the world, despite mineral wealth that includes diamonds.
Its economy is still struggling with the aftermath of a 1991-2002 civil war that left 120 000 dead and the impact of an Ebola epidemic that struck three West African countries from 2013-2016, followed in 2020 by Covid-19.
READ: Sierra Leone mass funeral for tanker blast victims, toll hits 115
© Agence France-Presse
