Death toll in explosion reaches 93: Police took part in fuel theft – AIM report

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Death toll in explosion reaches 93: Police took part in fuel theft – AIM report

7:02 CAT | 25 Nov 2016

File photo

The death toll from the explosion of 17 November of a fuel tanker in Moatize district, in the western Mozambican province of Tete, has now reached 93, according to Veronica de Deus, spokesperson for the Tete Provincial Hospital.

Cited in Friday’s issue of the independent daily “O Pais”, she said “The situation is still critical. From Wednesday to Thursday we unfortunately lost a further five patients, which means that 93 people have now died”.

51 people, including three children, are still being treated in the provincial hospital, and 13 of them are in a serious condition.

De Deus said that 13 skin graft operations have been undertaken. But for many of the injured skin grafts are not an option, because they have been so badly burnt that there is no part of their bodies from which skin can be taken.

The disaster occurred while a large crowd was looting the fuel tanker, which was parked near Nhacathale village, in the locality of Caphiridzange, about 500 kilometres from the main road to Malawi. The truck, belonging to the Malawian company Walker Investments, had been taking 80,000 litres of petrol from the port of Beira to Malawi.

Eye witness statements gathered by the independent weekly “Savana” indicate that on 16 November the truck suffered a breakdown, and that the Malawian company sent a second truck, without a trailer to rescue the consignment of fuel.

But the two Malawian drivers decided to make a profit for themselves and sell the petrol to a man known to trade in stolen fuel. This man, named Sabino, and nicknamed ”Taliban”, lives in Liberdade neighbourhood in Moatize town, and he sent a Toyota Dina pick-up, laden with plastic containers and armed with an electric pump, to Caphiridzange.

Far from preventing the theft, according to “Savana” two policemen participated in the robbery. The paper added that these two police have now been detained.

Pumping the fuel out of the two tanks carried by the Malawian truck did not go smoothly. There was a short circuit in the pump and a fire broke out. The fire ravaged the Toyota Dina.

According to the community leader in Nhacathale, Adelino Biquilone “a deal had been reached in advance between the truck driver and those who would resell the fuel, But when they were taking fuel out of the first section of the tank, there was a short circuit in the pump which began to cause flames.

The crowd that was watching managed to douse the flames, and it was believed that the fire was extinguished. “Taliban” mobilised another vehicle and towed the ruined Toyota Dina to an unknown location. The Malawian drivers fled, abandoning their vehicles.

On the morning of 17 November, two policemen appeared, supposedly to protect the remaining fuel. Instead, according to “Savana”’s sources, they decided to steal it. A survivor told the paper “The police arrived and when they realised there was still petrol in that section of the tank, they asked a group of youths to take out the fuel with plastic bidons, and they began to sell it to the fuel traders, until the situation became uncontrollable. There was a flood of people around the tank”.

“After the police had taken their part, they advised the local people, and the place began to fill up, because each person who went looking for more containers returned with other guests”, another survivor told the paper.

One of the paper’s sources claimed that a policeman tried to stop the rush of people around the tank, and when he was unsuccessful, fired a shot into the air. The survivor linked this shot with the subsequent eruption of flames.

This is different from the version, also told by a survivor, published by the daily paper “Noticias” on Tuesday. This man said the disaster occurred when someone opened the valve on the second tank, which was still smouldering from the previous day. The rush of oxygen into the tank reignited the fire.

A video of the looting has appeared on social media, clearly shot by somebody with a cell phone. No police can be seen on this video.

43 people were killed immediately as they were engulfed by the flames. The fire spread rapidly because the ground was soaked with petrol, and because people who had been hauling bidons filled with stolen fuel out of the tank were also covered in petrol.

The head of the central government delegation sent to Moatize, the Minister of State Administration, Carmelita Namashalua, did not speculate on exactly what ignited the flames. “What we were told was that, in the situation in which the drivers had fled, some people tried to knock holes in the fuel tank”, she said to reporters in Tete city.

“People were dipping objects into the tank, plastic or metallic, or hoses, as if they were taking water out of a well”, she said. She preferred to leave conclusion about the exact causes of the fire and explosion to the Commission of Inquiry, headed by Justice Minister Isaque Chande.

Namashalua admitted that Caphiridzange is a dangerous place where trucks are sometimes robbed, and where fuel is sold illegally to passing motorists.

“It’s a fact that fuel is sold in that area, and nobody knows where the fuel comes from”, she said. “Work is under way to look for solutions, not only to this case, but definitive solutions to control the climate of insecurity in that zone”.

Local leaders, such as Biquilone, gave the standard excuse for theft – supposedly people living in Caphiridzange were impelled to steal fuel because they were poor and hungry.

There had always been poverty in Caphiridzange, Biquilone said, but this year it was worse because of the southern African drought. “People crowded round the tank, because they saw money from the sale of that fuel”, he said.

One young survivor, Mauro Nfuneni, his feet swathed in bandages, told “Savana” that he accepted anything he was asked to do “without looking at the risks, because I need the money”.

But the end result has been to worsen poverty, since households in Caphiridzange have lost breadwinners, and have even lost simple items like containers to hold water, which were destroyed in the fatal attempt to steal fuel.

Source: AIM