LAGOS, Nigeria
At least five people were reportedly killed late Friday -- and several houses burnt down -- when a fuel-tanker caught fire in a commercial district of the town of Kagara in Nigeria’s north-central Niger State.
“Five people died, including two children. Rescue workers have, however, since managed to put out the fire,” Adamu Umaru, a resident of the town close to the where the incident took place, told AA.
Nigeria's official relief agency, meanwhile, confirmed the fire but said only two people had died.
“Two children… died in the inferno. They were locked up in the shops and so died there, while four people were treated for injuries,” Slaku Lugard, coordinator for Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency in central Nigeria, told Anadolu Agency.
Lugard added that 22 shops and “several” homes had been damaged in Kagara -- a town in Niger State’s Rafi local government area -- by the fire.
And on Saturday morning, a chemical explosion at a water-treatment plant in the central Nigerian town of Jos reportedly killed five people, according to a police spokesman.
