Health workers stand in-front of the coffins of eighty-five victims in Freetown on November 8, 2021, two days after a massive fireball sparked by a fuel tanker explosion killed almost 100 people in Sierra Leone's capital. (Photo by Saidu BAH / AFP)
The blast from a fuel tanker that blew up in Sierra Leone’s capital of Freetown last week has now claimed 131 lives, the authorities said Wednesday.
“(The) death toll has risen to 131, with 63 people hospitalised,” Lamarana Bah, head of communications at the National Disaster Management Agency, told AFP.
On Monday, the tally was at least 115 dead and 91 injured.
The disaster happened when a lorry crashed into a fuel tanker on Friday in an industrial area of Freetown.
A crowd gathered to try to scoop up leaking fuel but the tanker then blew up, engulfing them in a fireball.
President Julius Maada Bio declared three days of mourning as from Sunday.
The country made an appeal for blood donations and bandages, painkillers and infusion fluids for the injured.
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A former British colony of 7.5 million people, Sierra Leone is one of the poorest countries in the world, despite mineral wealth that includes diamonds.
Its economy is still struggling with the aftermath of a 1991-2002 civil war that left 120,000 dead and the impact of a Ebola epidemic that struck three West African countries from 2013-16, followed in 2020 by Covid-19.
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