The National Disaster Management Agency said 98 people had been killed and 92 more taken to hospital after the explosion in an industrial area of Freetown.īio said on Sunday the authorities were working on plans to give a 'dignified burial' to those killed in the accident. 'We need help to restart our lives all over again.' 'I lost two family members and my entire business in the explosion,' hawker Mohamed Kamara told AFP. Hundreds of people were picking through the wreckage on Sunday for any valuable materials they could find. The majority of the victims were street vendors and motorcyclists, many of whom were caught in the blaze while trying to retrieve fuel leaking from the tanker before it ignited, an eyewitness said. The flames then spread, burning people in cars and on roads nearby. The blast happened when a fuel tanker collided with another truck at a petrol station on Friday night, according to witnesses. 'Let us come together and learn from this, let us say never again it will happen,' he said. Reiterating the government's promise of free treatment for the injured, the president added that the country 'must learn from this unfortunate incident'.

'We are going to concentrate on helping those who are critically injured right now,' Bio said after returning from Britain, where he had been attending the COP26 climate conference.

The flame of the west