Watch: Three days of mourning for victims of explosion

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Watch: Three days of mourning for victims of explosion

8:00 CAT | 18 Nov 2016

Noticias

The Mozambican government on Friday declared a three day period of national mourning, during which flags will be flown at half mast, for the tragedy in Tete province on Thursday, where dozens of people died in the explosion of a fuel tanker.

Although the government has made clear that the top priority is caring for the survivors and comforting the bereaved families, it also announced the establishment of a commission of inquiry, chaired by the Ministry of Justice, which will look into the causes of the disaster.

The tanker, belonging to a Malawian company, was carrying 80,000 litres of petrol from the port of Beira to Malawi. The driver diverted the tanker off the main road to Malawi, and parked it in the locality of Caphiridzange, in Moatize district, where a crowd of people looted it of its contents. During this theft, the petrol caught fire and the truck exploded.

According to sources in Tete provincial hospital, cited by the independent television station STV, the death toll from the disaster stood at 56 by midday on Friday – considerably less than the 73 deaths claimed by the Friday issue of the daily paper “Noticias”. The medical sources said that 96 injured people are received treatment, and that 38 of these burn victims are in a serious condition.

The Tete police now believe that the Malawian driver of the tanker organized the looting of his own vehicle. He drove it off the main road to Caphiridzange precisely in order to sell the fuel to residents there. If this account is true, it implies that the driver had contacted buyers in advance, and that the theft was organized rather than spontaneous.