Bunkering Blaze: Rivers Harvests More Deaths

Two days after the fire incident at a illegal oil refining site in Ibaa Community, Emohua council area of Rivers State, more deaths have been recorded.

FreshNews gathered that eight more people, badly injured in the blaze, died between Monday afternoon and Tuesday evening.

The development is coming even as families and outsiders continued to search for relatives yet to be accounted for days after the inferno.

It would be recalled that over 50 people were burnt in a fire incident at the forest of Ibaa while engaging in illegal bunkering.

About 30 people reportedly died at the site while many others with various degrees of burnt died while receiving treatment in hospitals.

In a statement released to newsmen, state spokesman of the Nigerian Secuity and Civil Defense Corps, NSCDC, Olufemi Ayodele, acknowledged that though 25 persons were injured but rescued, 18 others were burnt beyond recognition.

Paramount Ruler of Ibaa/Obelle, Eze Sunday Wobodo Jonah, expressed fears that more death might be recorded based on the number of people involved in the accident.

Jonah noted that the fact that some families are still searching for loved ones presupposrs that indeed more people are dead from the incident and are yet to be accounted for.

“Right now we don’t know the exact number because you know it was not at home, it was in the bush. Some of them do these things (bunkering) in the forest. People are still searching for their people, many of them burnt beyond recognition.

“Many people were found dead, some people wounded. I heard that one of the victims is the son of the person doing the bunkering. That he was also wounded and he lost his own son.

“It is a catastrophe and I am not happy about it. It is a sad day in the community. Nobody is happy," he said, bemoaning the fact that his counsel over illegal bunkering went unheeded.