The death toll in the blaze caused by the explosion of two train tankers carrying petrol in the Cameroon capital, Yaounde, has risen to 120, state radio said yesterday.
More than 150 people were injured when the oil wagons exploded at a crowded rail siding in Yaounde on Saturday, according to hospital staff and officials. They said that the toll could rise further because of the "worrying" condition of many of the injured and the difficulty of caring for people with multiple burns.
More than 150 people suffered burns, most of them critically, after huge flames swept through a crowd of people scooping up petrol spilling from the tankers which had collided hours earlier.
Initially, the toll was given as at least 70 deaths and 200 injuries, following the accident early on Saturday.
It was not clear what caused the collision of the two trains, one heading out of Yaounde and the other coming in. Both were pulling petroleum tanker cars.
After the collision outside the Mvolye oil depot in the Yaounde suburb of Nsam, witnesses said, there was a very violent explosion. Initial inquiries suggested that the blast was caused by a burning cigarette dropped carelessly by someone in the crowd.
Bystanders and nearby motorists had rushed to the scene of the crash and were scooping up the spilling fuel when an explosion rocked the area, and flames from the blast engulfed many many of them.
"People were running in all directions, many of them with their clothes on fire," a nearby resident said. "Most of the people were already soaked in petrol because they were carrying it in buckets to their houses and then running back for more," he said.
Armed police sealed off the scene as crowds still gathered a short distance away staring silently at the burned out wreckage of the two trains. A few bodies burned beyond recognition still lay in heaps of ash at the scene yesterday.
Yaounde's three main hospitals were crowded by hundreds of people seeking news of their relatives. Doctors at the Yaounde Military Hospital said they were still battling to save some victims. They said 11 of 16 casualties brought there on Saturday had since died.
Police cordoned off access to the hospital's casualty department, provoking a near riot from people gathered to try to identify the victims in response to a call by authorities.
Authorities said the accident was the central African country's worst disaster since toxic gases escaping from Lake Nyos, in the north-west, killed 1,746 villagers in 1986.
Although Cameroon produces and exports some oil, the price of petrol is much higher than in neighbouring Nigeria and there is an active illegal market in smuggled Nigerian petrol. The country has faced severe economic problems in recent years and its hospitals are ill-equipped to deal with a disaster such as Saturday's.