The Benin Republic government has ordered an assessment enquiry after a fuel explosion killed at least 34 people.
A formal assessment of all storage facilities has been launched by the Beninese authorities after the deadly Saturday explosion at a fuel depot left dozens dead and over 20 injured.
This was disclosed in a statement by Benin’s decentralisation and governance ministry on Monday.
According to the ministry, the incident occurred at the densely populated market in the town of Seme Podji, in the southern region of Benin Republic, close to its Nigerian border.
The statement said the “exhaustive assessment” of all fuel depots was ordered to ensure that a similar incident does not occur in other areas of the country.
It warned that “Despite raising awareness and measures taken by the government to limit smuggling activities, particularly those linked to the storage and sale of gasoline across the country, certain people continue to store gasoline in inappropriate places.”
The Interior Minister of Benin, Alassane Seidou, informed reporters that two babies were killed in the explosion.
In a statement released by the ministry on the fuel explosion incident, Seidou said “the emergency services intervened in time”
It said the fire “caused a lot of noise to the point where people alerted the emergency services, in particular the National Fire Brigade. The Group was alerted at 9:59 a.m. and 6 minutes later, the first truck was there since we had ambulances and a firefighting truck in Sèmè. So three rescue centres intervened: the Sèmè rescue centre, the Porto-Novo rescue centre, and the Saint Jean centre.
“As I speak to you, we have unfortunately recorded 34 deaths because the cause of the fire is fuel, particularly smuggled fuel. We also recorded 20 injuries of varying severity. They are seriously injured and I cannot go into details. But everything that needs to be done has been done. The security perimeter has already been demarcated. There is a security cordon in place and the situation is now well under control.”
The location of the incident is a soft spot for petroleum smuggling as the Republic of Benin shares a border with Nigeria, one of Africa’s biggest oil producer.
