About 18 persons were reported to have been burnt to ashes and over 50 severely injured and are hospitalised due to a gas explosion at Natson Petroleum Nig. Ltd filling station, in Lafia, the Nasarawa State capital.

The cause of the explosion, according to a source around the filling station, was due to a head-on collision between a commercial motorcycle and a Keke Napep driver from the main road which the flames extended to an already leakage of gas products from one of the reservoirs from the filling station before the explosion occurred.

About nine vehicles, including two fuel tankers, eight motorcycles and three tricycles, were caught in the inferno burning all the occupants beyond recognition.

Meanwhile, the casualty unit of the Dalhatu Araf Specialist Hospital (DASH), Lafia, was littered with burnt bodies of victims of the gas explosion as medical personnel of the hospital battled to save their lives.

A female medical personnel attending to the victims at the casualty unit of the hospital declined comment on the number of casualties so far conveyed into the casualty unit for treatment,

She, however, said that the immediate concern of officials of the hospital personnel was to save life first, noting that the dead bodies should be about 18.

•Excerpted from a Daily Sun report