Authorities are still searching for bodies after a powerful explosion ripped through Nigeria’s largest city.
The Lagos blast occurred Sunday after a truck hit gas bottles stacked near a processing plant. The resulting gas pipeline explosion killed at least 17 people, wounded scores of others, and set 100 homes on fire, according to Al Jazeera.
Ibrahim Farinloye, a spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency, said that many cars and motorcycles were also destroyed in the inferno. Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari called the disaster a national tragedy.
A nearby girls boarding school, which was attended by 250 students, was badly damaged in the blast. Rescue workers were still scouring rubble around the site for victims on Monday.
“We are recovering dead bodies as we speak and putting them in bags,” said Lagos Red Cross official Adebola Kolawale. “We have a school here, and it’s a residential area. And we have a trade fair here as well.”
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation said the blast was so powerful that it led to “the collapse of nearby houses and damage to a pipeline.”
