Nairobi pipeline explosion kills, injures scores

Added by Gary Dunn on September 12, 2011

A leaking gasoline pipeline exploded in a Nairobi industrial area at 9am (6am UTC/GMT) on Monday, killing at least 75 and injuring at least 100.

The gasoline pipeline runs through a slum in the Kenyan capital. The area was already crowded with people going about their day-to-day business, when a crowd gathered to collect leaking gasoline from a break in the pipeline.

Flames spread more than 300m (1,000ft) from the pipeline, engulfing shacks and people in flames. Bodies were seen floating in a nearby river.

A resident Joseph Mwangi said he heard people yelling about a a leak in the pipeline and saw them getting fuel using buckets and other vessels. Mwangi was going to get a bucket when he heard the explosion at about 9am (6am UTC/GMT). Mwangi said that fuel had leaked into the river, which had also caught fire and saw people jumping into the river just after the explosion. Mwangi later found his two dead children nearby.

At least 112 victims, many of them children, had been brought to the Kenyatta National Hospital.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga visited the hospital and promised an investigation and offered to cover medical expenses for those that were injured.