DUTSE, Nigeria (The Informant247) – Five people were hospitalized late on Monday with injuries from a gas explosion in Nigeria’s northwestern Jigawa state, police said on Tuesday.
Seventeen shops and five houses were damaged by the inferno caused by the explosion from a truck transporting ‘smuggled gas’, according to state police spokesperson Lawan Shiisu.
Shiisu said the vehicle was being pursued by a team of operatives from the Nigerian Customs Border Drill No. 12 while ‘illegally’ transporting gas from Niger Republic.
The state spokesperson of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Adamu Sheu, corroborating the police account said the driver of the truck was pursued by security operatives after he refused to stop when flagged down, resulting in one of the cylinders falling off the truck and catching fire immediately.
He said that the victims were currently receiving treatment at the Babura General Hospital.