The tragedy with the explosion and the fire caused by a car accident in which a fuel tanker was involved last week in Sierra Leone resulted in the death of 131 people, according to the latest official report of the victims that was published yesterday, Wednesday.
“The toll has risen, we have 131 dead and 63 people are still being treated in hospitals,” Lamarana Ba, a spokeswoman for the African country ‘s national disaster service, told AFP.
For its part, the presidency announced that a ceremony was held yesterday afternoon to conclude the three-day national mourning declared by President Julius Maanda Bio on Sunday.
The tragedy unfolded on Friday, when a tanker collided with another heavy vehicle at a gas station in an industrial zone of the capital Freetown, resulting in an explosion and fire.
According to eyewitnesses, most of the victims were street vendors and motorcyclists trying to collect fuel that was leaking from the tanker when the fire broke out.
Sierra Leone, once a British colony of 7.5 million people, is one of the poorest countries in the world, despite the fact that its subsoil is particularly rich in diamonds.
Its economy, plagued by the gangrene of corruption, is still struggling to recover from the devastating civil war (1991-2002) that killed 120,000 people, the Ebola epidemic and the new coronavirus pandemic.
