A central morgue and local officials said Friday that an explosion after a fuel tanker collided in the Sierra Leone capital killed 91 people.
The government has yet to confirm the death toll, but the manager of the Central State Morgue in Freetown said it had found 91 bodies after the explosion.
The victims also included people who came to collect the fuel leaking from the broken vehicle, the mayor of the port city, Yvonne Aki-Sawyer, said in a post on Facebook.
“We have found a lot of casualties, burnt bodies,” Brima Bureh Sese, head of the National Disaster Management Agency, said in a video of the scene shared online. “It’s a terrible, terrible accident.”
Images shared widely online showed several badly-burned victims lying on the streets as nearby shops and homes caught fire. Reuters was not immediately able to verify the images.
Aki-Sauer called the video and photos “harrowing”.
While the mayor said the extent of the damage was not yet clear, police and their deputy were at the scene to assist disaster management officials.
President Julius Mada Bio tweeted, “My deepest condolences to the families who have lost loved ones and who have been crippled as a result.”
“My government will do everything to help the affected families.”