At least 99 people were killed and more than 100 injured in the capital of Sierra Leone late on Friday when a fuel tanker exploded following a collision, local authorities said.
Emergency crews worked to clear the scene on Saturday in Freetown’s eastern suburb of Wellington where a burnt body and the blackened shells of cars and motorbikes blocked the road following the crash, a Reuters reporter said.
The wounded were treated in hospitals and clinics across the capital, deputy health minister Amara Jambai told Reuters.
Victims included people who had flocked to collect fuel leaking from the ruptured vehicle, Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, mayor of the port city, said in a post on Facebook, although that post was later edited to remove the reference.
"We've got so many casualties, burnt corpses," said Brima Bureh Sesay, head of the National Disaster Management Agency, in a video from the scene shared online. "It's a terrible, terrible accident."
Videos shared online shortly after the explosion showed people running through clouds of thick smoke as large fires lit up the night sky.
"We are all in shock. A lady I had just bought bread from died. A lovely woman. I can’t get over this grief," said Abdul Kabia, crying at the crash site surrounded by mangled vehicles.
The crash provided a major challenge for Freetown’s health service already creaking from years of underfunding.
The 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic gutted the country’s ranks of medical staff, 250 of whom died, and the system has not recovered.
