Gas tanker truck fire kills more than 100
ABUJA, Nigeria – A gas tanker truck ignited an inferno at a crowded industrial gas plant in Nigeria on Thursday, killing more than 100 people lining up to refill their cooking gas cylinders in time for Christmas.
The disaster took place in Nnewi, a predominantly Christian community in southeast Nigeria. By the time firefighters managed to put out the blaze, an Associated Press reporter counted the remains of more than 100 corpses.
A witness, Emeka Peters, said the fire broke out at about 11 a.m. when a tanker truck that had finished discharging fresh gas at the Chikason Group Gas plant left without waiting to observe the prescribed cooling time.
“The fire exploded like a bomb, and the whole gas station went up in thick, black smoke amidst an explosion from cooking gas cylinders,” Peters said. “Many people were killed, and most of them were those that had been in the station queuing all day to get their cylinders refilled.”
Syrian rebel leader reportedly killed
BEIRUT – The leader of a powerful Syrian rebel group that controls key suburbs of Damascus was killed in an airstrike on Friday, according to activists and local media.
Zahran Alloush, who headed Jaish al-Islam, was holding meetings with rebel officials when their compound near the Syrian capital came under attack, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The death of Alloush, if confirmed, could have significant repercussions on the grinding battles taking place just beyond government-held Damascus in suburbs controlled by rebel forces.
Jaish al-Islam holds sway over the vast Eastern Ghouta area east of the capital, preventing President Bashar Assad from consolidating territory that is just a few miles from his seat of power.
Associated Press & Washington Post
