Four people were killed and 11 others sustained burns of varying severity when a poorly stored consignment of cooking gas cylinders exploded in an unlicensed petroleum products depot in the Rumuola area of Port Harcourt on Wednesday morning, according to the Rivers State Fire Service.
Eyewitnesses said the explosion occurred when a leaking cylinder was exposed to a naked flame at a roadside depot that had been operating without registration or regulatory inspection, one of hundreds of such informal fuel storage operations that proliferate across Port Harcourt residential areas.
The Rivers State Department of Petroleum Resources has conducted periodic enforcement exercises against unlicensed fuel depots but acknowledges that the scale of informal petroleum product trading in the city far exceeds its inspection capacity.
The Nigerian Gas Association has called for a comprehensive crackdown on illegal gas cylinder trading and storage, noting that the proliferation of uncertified cylinders and unqualified gas handlers represents a severe public safety risk in urban areas across the Niger Delta.
Victims families have called on the government to hold accountable those who operated the unlicensed depot, and to ensure that the injured receive adequate medical support at government expense.
