Scores were reportedly injured on Friday following a suspected gas explosion that rocked Magama Jibia town of Katsina State.
According to Saturday PUNCH, the explosion caused extensive damage to an unspecified number of vehicles and houses.
The incident, according to sources, occurred at an abandoned filling station, Walidan, which according to sources, has been linked to smuggling activities involving gas cylinders transported from Niger Republic.
A resident of the area, Shehu Umar, “What happened is about the people who smuggle gas from the Niger Republic and settle in some areas in Jibia town.
“On this particular one, they came in a truck loaded with gas cylinders and parked at the filling station. We can’t ascertain the root cause of the disaster at the moment, but we suspect a spark from a wire on the truck, which may have triggered the explosion and spread to other trucks”.
While the exact number of casualties remained unclear, witnesses confirmed that many people sustained injuries just as several vehicles, houses, and even school structures in the vicinity were damaged.
There were no student casualties as they had been evacuated from the affected schools before the explosion occurred.
Describing the unchecked activities of smugglers in the area as frustrating and devastating, Umar said, “The issue is that people are doing the business illegally, and the concerned authorities have not done anything to check their activities”.
The resident called on the government to take urgent and decisive action against smuggling operations to prevent similar incidents in the future.
As of the time of filing this report, there was no official statement from the authority on the incident though emergency services had begun to assess the extent of the damage.
Confirming the incident, the Information Officer of Jibia Local Government Area, Musa Abdulkarim, in a telephone interview with our PUNCH, said, “I was not around at the time of the disaster but I was told seven cars, one filling station, and one house were burnt. Children too were among the injured ones.”
