Yaoundé train explosion
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Yaoundé train explosion was the catastrophic destruction of a tanker train hauling fuel oil through the capital of Cameroon, Yaoundé, which killed 120 people on February 14, 1998.
The train was a regular industrial transportation service running from Cameroon's oil fields along the Nigerian border to the capital Yaoundé, where it would either be processed at the Myvole plant, or shipped directly to the coast for exportation. As it entered Yaoundé's suburbs in the mid-morning, it collided with another freight train heading south, and derailed close to the main petroleum depot on a very busy train intersection. Nobody was seriously hurt in the accident, but the tanker carriages were ruptured, and spilt fuel oil began to spread.
A large number of local people and passing taxi drivers stopped to collect the fuel oil in containers, which they could then sell on for a bit of extra money, when the disaster occurred. Apparently, one of the "gatherers" was smoking a lightened cigarette at the time, and as he stooped to collect some oil, he dropped it, creating a flash fire, which travelled right back to the wrecked tankers, creating a massive fireball, which killed almost all the people in the area, as well as flattening local slum housing and starting numerous smaller fires in the surrounding districts.
The emergency services arrived on the scene soon after the blaze started, but were for a long time held back by the force of the flames, which they were only able to contain, not extinguish. In fact the fire did not stop burning for several hours, and there were fears it might spread to the nearby central petroleum depot at Nsiam, although thankfully this was avoided. For days, a column of black smoke hung over the area of the blast.
Authorities were unable to give an exact number of casualties, but the final number of confirmed dead was over 120 people, with at least 130 in hospital after suffering terrible burns. Railway services to the south of the country were out of action for weeks, dealing another blow to Cameroon's oil industry, following a series of border skirmishes with Nigerian troops over control of the are in the previous two years.
Former colonial rulers France sent numerous types of aid to Cameroon following the disaster, including several prestigious medical burns specialists, as well as financial and technical help. The cause of the crash is not known, but may have had something to do with poor equipment and maintenance on the rail system due to Cameroon's endemic corruption. Cameroon was labelled "most corrupt nation 1998" by Transparency International [1].
