Deaths
Although the Nigerian Emergency Management Agency puts the current death toll at ten, the Nigerian Red Cross claims at least 100 people have died. Other accounts state that the number dead is 39, including school children. AllAfrica.com reports that the death toll is up to 43. The bodies were taken to the Ikeja General Hospital. A pregnant woman and her 4-year-old son were also among the dead. The Nigerian Red Cross compiled names of the deceased and injured. They set up camps near the disaster as well. Local council and government officials claim that the actual death toll is much lower than what the Nigerian Red Cross is claiming. Victims were taken to a hospital and are said to be suffering from serious burns.
It's believed that when the explosion occurred, gate men at the Ijegun Primary School initially locked the gates apparently to prevent the pupils from running into danger. But when the atmosphere became tense, the gate men and other staff were said to have run for their lives leaving everyone to their fate.
At that point, students from Ijegun Comprehensive School who ran into the primary school premises were said to have jointly brought down the wall of the school to facilitate their escape. Most of them were trampled on. Eight out of sixteen pupils who were rushed to Corner Stone Hospital reportedly died on 15 May and another died a day later. Three residents were killed after being run over by vehicles whose drivers attempted to flee the fire zone.
Read more about this topic: 2008 Ijegun Pipeline Explosion
Famous quotes containing the word deaths:
“You lived too long, we have supped full with heroes,
they waste their deaths on us.”
—C.D. Andrews (1913–1992)
“Death is too much for men to bear, whereas women, who are practiced in bearing the deaths of men before their own and who are also practiced in bearing life, take death almost in stride. They go to meet death—that is, they attempt suicide—twice as often as men, though men are more “successful” because they use surer weapons, like guns.”
—Roger Rosenblatt (b. 1940)
“There is the guilt all soldiers feel for having broken the taboo against killing, a guilt as old as war itself. Add to this the soldier’s sense of shame for having fought in actions that resulted, indirectly or directly, in the deaths of civilians. Then pile on top of that an attitude of social opprobrium, an attitude that made the fighting man feel personally morally responsible for the war, and you get your proverbial walking time bomb.”
—Philip Caputo (b. 1941)