THE death toll from a petrol tanker explosion in central Liberia has risen to 74, the West African nation’s chief medical officer said Monday.
The new figure is sharply up on the previous toll of 40 dead from the December 26 disaster.
On Sunday, President George Weah declared a national week of mourning for the victims and their families.
“The present toll is over 70 that have died,” Francis Kateh, Liberia’s chief medical officer, told AFP on Monday.
“There were others that turned to ashes, and so up until now, we are still trying to figure out” the toll, he added.
He specified in a message sent later that the death toll had risen to 74.
Witnesses said people had clambered onto the lorry to try to collect petrol leaking from its tank after it crashed and tipped into a ditch along a road in Totota, about 130 kilometres (80 miles) from the capital Monrovia.
Local resident Aaron Massaquoi told AFP at the time that “some people climbed onto the lorry to get petrol. Some of them had iron bars and were hitting the tanker so that it would burst in order to take the petrol”.
