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Oil truck fireball kills at least 42 in central Kenya - aid worker

by Reuters
Sunday, 11 December 2016 08:54 GMT

A man walks in the smoke as they assess the wreckages of cars burnt after a fireball from an tanker engulfed several vehicles and killed several people, near the Rift Valley town of Naivasha, west of Kenya's capital Nairobi, December 11, 2016. REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya

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An official in Naivasha said 50 people were being treated in several hospitals for burns

(Recasts, updates death count)

By Anthony Githonga

NAIVASHA, Kenya, Dec 11 (Reuters) - A fireball from an oil lorry engulfed vehicles on one of Kenya's main highways, killing at least 42 people late on Saturday, a rescue worker at the scene said.

The tanker lorry rammed into vehicles north of the central town of Naivasha then exploded, an official with the National Disaster Management Authority said.

"More bodies are still trapped inside the burned vehicles," Red Cross volunteer Moha Maris told Reuters.

The government gave a lower death toll. "The information that we have is that 13 vehicles were involved and so far we have retrieved 33 bodies," Irungu Nyakera, Principal Secretary at the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, told a news conference.

An official in Naivasha said 50 people were being treated in several hospitals for burns, eight of them in a serious condition.

In 2009, more than 100 people burned to death near the central town of Molo after a lorry carrying petrol caught fire.

(Additional reporting by Noor Ali and Humphrey Malalo; Writing by Katharine Houreld; Editing by Aaron Maasho and Andrew Heavens)

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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