Two dead, five trucks razed in explosion at Abia filling station

Two men, on Wednesday, died in a fire outbreak at Chibyno filling station along Alaoji – Ikot-Ekpene Road in Obingwa LGA of Abia state.

According to the Aba fire service, the incident occurred in the morning.

Belenta Belenta, Aba zonal commander of the service, said he suspected that the victims were involved in oil bunkering which might have informed the discharging of petroleum products at the station at the wee hours of the day.

He said over five trucks were consumed by the fire which was caused by an explosion at the site of the incident.

He said the police have visited the scene to take the corpse of one of the victims of the accident to the mortuary.

Belenta said the other victim, who was badly burnt and taken to hospital, had also been reported dead.

Another witness, who identified himself as Nnamdi, said he lives in the area and was awakened by calls around 5:00am to come to the scene of the fire.

“Very early this morning around 5 a.m., some persons called me to tell me that there is a fire outbreak at a nearby filling station called Chibyno Filling Station at the Ikot-Ekpene / Alaoji Road,” he said.

“We called fire fighters who came to the scene which had snowballed into a very big inferno that covered the whole filling station.

“The filling station had four trucks which were discharging fuel at the same time.

“We learnt that there was a little spark from the generating set they were using to pump the fuel into their tank which resulted in an explosion.”