Kerosine explosion in Benin: 15-year-old boy killed, mother, children, injured

A 15 year-old boy has been killed by an explosion suspected to be caused by adulterated kerosene.

PUNCH reports that the explosion which occurred at about 2.30am on Thursday at Ukpebo Street, off Textile Mill Road, Benin, Edo State, “left a 31-year-old mother of three, Mrs. Loveth Ode, her two year-old son, Wisdom, and her relative, Alfred Omonefe, with varying degrees of burns”.

According to the report,

Alfred, 15, however, died en route to the Central Hospital, Benin. Others were said to be receiving treatment at the hospital.
Loveth’s husband, Mr. Sunday Ode, 35, told our correspondent that he was away at work when he got a call that his wife, son and nephew had been rushed to the accident and emergency ward of the hospital following the explosion.
He said that the incident occurred when his wife attempted to refill a lit lantern in the room with the kerosene which she bought from a roadside seller.

The paper quotes Sunday, a farmer from Ughele North in Delta State, as explaining that the fire caused by the blast did not affect other rooms in the compound, but destroyed some of his valuable property.

He said: “I received a call this morning (Thursday) that my room on Ukpebo Street caught fire last night as my wife tried to refill the lantern.

“I was shocked and rushed to the hospital where they were taken to. But my sister’s son who was staying with me died on the way to the hospital.

“I am appealing to the government to assist me and my family because I don’t have anything now.”