Mozambique tanker explosion – Death toll rises to 84 / Police looking for two drivers still at large

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Mozambique tanker explosion – Death toll rises to 84 / Police looking for two drivers still at large

1:50 CAT | 23 Nov 2016

Folha de Maputo

The driver of the fuel tanker that exploded in Tete is still on the run, police said on Thursday, as health officials raised the death toll in the explosion to 84.

In a press conference on police activity, Republic of Mozambique Police General Command (PRM) spokesman Cláudio Langa said that the authorities were looking for the Malawian driver of the fuel tanker and the Mozambican driver of another truck to which the stolen cargo was to be transferred.

“They are on the run and the police are looking for them in the context of investigations to hold the perpetrators accountable,” Langa said.

Tete Provincial Hospital yesterday updated official figures to 84 people dead after four more deaths in the last 24 hours, and 64 hospitalised, some in critical condition.

Mozambique completed the three days of national mourning decreed by the Government following the blast on Monday.

The actual cause of the blast, which occurred when dozens of people gathered to steal fuel from a tanker truck, remained uncertain, State Administration Minister Carmelita Namashulua told a press conference in Tete on Sunday, adding that it was advisable to wait for the results of a commission set up to investigate the incident.

Namashulua said the government had also set up a commission to ensure that deaths in families did not leave survivors socially destitute.

According to the minister, the social support commission could carry out a survey of needs and the Government was prepared to intervene according to the conditions on the ground and the facts ascertained.

Reports to the Lusa news agency website suggest that the tanker, with a Malawian license plate and belonging to a fuel distribution company, deviated by arrangement from its route on Wednesday afternoon to a small forest about 400 meters from National Highway 7, where part of its load was to be taken out in jerry cans by a group of street resellers.

But following a fuel pump short circuit, one section of the tank caught fire, causing onlookers to gather.

On Thursday, the truck driver having fled and in the absence of any figure of authority, the population began to remove buckets of fuel from the second still-intact section of the tank. It was this section that exploded, killing 43 people at the scene and leaving more than 100 wounded.

Source: Lusa