New evidence obtained by BBC Africa Eye contradicts the official explanation for the cause of an explosion which killed 23 people and destroyed a girls boarding school in Lagos, Nigeria, earlier in the year.The blast occurred in Soba, a residential neighbourhood of Lagos, on March 15th, 2020, at about 8:56 am.
In its reaction to the incident at the time, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) claimed the explosion occurred as a result of a truck that hit gas cylinders near one of its petroleum pipelines.
But new evidence indicates that the NNPC explanation for the
cause of the blast, that decimated over 100,000 square metres of Lagos, is
incorrect.
A new video evidence filmed at the explosion site, five
minutes before the blast, shows a catastrophic leak of vaporised liquid at the
exact location where the NNPC high-pressure petroleum pipeline runs beneath the
ground through that area.
The BBC found there was no gas processing plant at the explosion’s epicentre.
Moreover, analysis of gas cylinders found at the site after the blast indicates they could not have been at the centre of the explosion when it happened.
Three specialist engineers – including experts in LPG gas
safety, petroleum pipeline safety, and explosions analysis – who have examined
video footage all confirm the huge leak of vaporised liquid could not have come
from gas cylinders.
The BBC spoke with eyewitnesses who corroborated this claim.
None of them mentioned gas cylinders or saw a collision, but four of them
independently said the leak was coming out of the ground beside the heavily
laden truck.
