Tanker explodes, injures resident in Victoria Island

A fuel tanker yesterday caught fire and sent some parts of Victoria Island, Lagos State into panic on Tuesday.

A resident was badly injured when the tanker exploded on Younis Bashorun Street, off Ajose Adeogun, Victoria Island. The explosion also affected another car coming behind the tanker, as the two vehicles caught fire.

It was gathered that the fully-loaded fuel tanker was offloading diesel into a generating set for a block of apartments located towards the end of the street when a resident noticed a leak that had resulted in smoke.

An attempt by the resident to put out the resulting fire with a fire extinguisher worsened the situation as it blew up in his face and burnt part of him.

As the tanker caught fire at about 10:00a.m. the fire further spread to a parked car nearby at which point residents of the community were already trying to salvage the situation by rallying to get buckets of water to put out the fire.

Despite their efforts, the fire escalated to burn a nearby transformer as well as blacken the wall of some neighbouring buildings.

After emergency agencies arrived at the scene, residents were evacuated as officers of the Lagos State Fire Service battled to extinguish the fire with four fire trucks. The fire was eventually extinguished at about 1:15p.m.