Tanker explosion kills 32 in Afghanistan
Two fuel tankers exploded in a bustling bazaar in western Afghanistan, killing as many as 32 people, officials said.
Up to 40 more people were reported to have been injured in yesterday’s blast in Azizabad, a town in Herat province, 360 miles west of the capital, Kabul.
Herat provincial government spokesman Ghulam Mohammad Masoum said repair work on a gas tanker appeared to have triggered the blast.
“The driver stopped in Azizabad to get some welding done on the vehicle,” Masoum said. “It must have ignited the gas. There was another fuel tanker parked nearby, and it exploded, too.”
The blast ignited more fuel at a nearby petrol station and destroyed shops and cars. Bodies were scattered across the bazaar, he said.
Most of the injured were rushed to hospitals in Herat city, 50 miles to the north.
Masoum said 32 people were killed and 35 injured.
In Kabul, a statement from President Hamid Karzai’s office said at least 25 people were killed and 40 injured and that the president was “deeply saddened by the news of the terrible accident.”
Many of Afghanistan’s impoverished petrol stations and fuel tankers are in poor repair and most Afghans buy petrol – much of it smuggled and of poor quality – from roadside shacks where it is poured from battered jerry cans into their vehicles.
