Fuel Tanker explodes at MMA

Murtala Mohammed International Airport

Tragedy was averted in Lagos yesterday evening at the tanker park at the Murtala Muhammed Airport, MMA, Lagos as a fuel tanker exploded while undergoing repairs by a welder. The place of the incident was about 300 meters to the international terminal of the airport. A source close to the scene of the incident told our correspondent that the welder was severely burnt because of the incident. As at the time of filing in this story, the identity of the welder was yet to be ascertained, but the source told our correspondent that he was working on one of the trailers parked at the motor park before the explosion occurred.

The source said that one of the equipment being used by the welder sparked, which led to explosion and ignited flames in the park. However, swift response from the fire fighters of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, put the raging inferno under control. One of the fire fighting officials told Sunday Mirror that if not for the timely intervention of fire fighters the whole airport would have been engulfed in flames because many of the tankers still had aviation fuel and each tanker had at least 33,000 litres of the product, known as Jet A1. 

He said, “We were signalled when we heard explosion and we quickly readied our two major props and drove to the area. By then the fire had started spreading and rising, but we were able to put it off and prevented it from spreading to other tankers, some of them were laden with fuel. It would have been tragic. But we were able to contain it. “We wore our protective gear and went into the fire, using foam and chemicals, we were able to put it out. We hastened to do that because every second it was allowed would have been tragic. We used two of our major props.” 

Over the years, airport users and others have complained about the danger of locating tanker park very close to the airport and also very close to the Joint User Hydrant Installation (JUHI) tank farm because of such incident as this. In his maiden media chat after the facility tour of the Lagos Airport in December last year, Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi assured that he would discuss with FAAN on how to ensure that the tankers were relocated or taken away from the area too close to the airport. Investigation carried out by our correspondent indicated that there was no fire equipment at the tanker park.

Culled from the National Mirror