{"id":18312,"date":"2018-10-13T15:24:23","date_gmt":"2018-10-13T15:24:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=18312"},"modified":"2018-10-13T15:24:23","modified_gmt":"2018-10-13T15:24:23","slug":"nigeria-dozens-of-petrol-thieves-killed-in-aba-pipeline-blast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=18312","title":{"rendered":"Nigeria: Dozens of &#8216;petrol thieves&#8217; killed in Aba pipeline blast"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"body-200771816342556199\" readability=\"97.6353383459\">\n<p class=\"speakable\">At least 30 people were killed when a pipeline caught fire and exploded in southeast <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/topics\/country\/nigeria.html\">Nigeria<\/a> after a raid by suspected petrol thieves, a survivor and officials said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">The incident happened in the town of Aba on Friday when suspected assailants burst the pipeline operated by the state-run Pipeline and Product Marketing Company.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">&#8220;The incident occurred at about 1:30 am (00:30 GMT). Those burnt are more than 30 with many others sustaining injuries,&#8221; Nnamdi Tochukwu, a survivor said on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>A security officer, who did not want to be identified, confirmed the death toll.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Over 30 bodies were burnt at the scene before the arrival of security operatives while many others are currently receiving medical attention at various hospitals within and outside the town,&#8221; the officer said.<\/p>\n<p>A spokesperson for the state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) said the victims were vandals attempting to scoop petrol from the pipeline.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t give the exact number of casualties for now, but the explosion was caused as a result of oil thieves who had hacked the line to intercept the flow of petrol from the Port Harcourt refinery to Aba,&#8221; Ndu Ughamadu told AFP news agency.<\/p>\n<p>He said an investigation was under way.<\/p>\n<p>Nigeria, Africa&#8217;s largest oil producer and exporter, runs a network of pipelines that transport crude and petrol across the vast nation.<\/p>\n<p>Thieves often break into pipelines that sometimes explode as villagers scoop up fuel.<\/p>\n<p>One explosion in 1998 in the Niger Delta killed more than 1,000 people.<\/p>\n<p>At least 269 people<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/africa\/2006\/12\/200852513375961781.html\"> died in a blaze<\/a> in 2006 at a vandalised oil pipeline.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"imagecontainer item\" data-image-url=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/mritems\/Images\/2018\/10\/13\/f5aeb9c036654acdbe78efec7255d64f_18.jpg\">\n<table class=\"image\" border=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/mritems\/Images\/2018\/10\/13\/f5aeb9c036654acdbe78efec7255d64f_18.jpg\" border=\"0\"><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td class=\"caption\">\u00a0<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At least 30 people were killed when a pipeline caught fire and exploded in southeast Nigeria after a raid by suspected petrol thieves, a survivor and officials said. The incident happened in the town of Aba on Friday when suspected assailants burst the pipeline operated by the state-run Pipeline and Product Marketing Company. &#8220;The incident&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":18313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}