A fuel tanker explosion on Wednesday night in the western region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo resulted in “many individuals dead and gravely burned,” according to the governor of Kongo-Central province.
The accident, which is currently under investigation, happened on National Road 1 close to the community of Mbuba in the Madimba region, 120 kilometers west of Kinshasa. Civil society sources claim that the car blew up close to a small market as it was traveling into the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
At the same spot, a tanker had detonated following a collision in October 2018, killing over 50 people.
“Several dead and severely burned in Mbuba this evening after another tanker explosion on the RN-1,” Kongo-Central governor Guy Bandu said on Twitter.
No further toll was available early Thursday morning.
“It is more than time to take drastic and courageous measures to strengthen the regulation of transport, especially that of flammable products, to put an end to this cycle of disasters. The RN1 should not be a graveyard,” the governor commented in his tweet.
The RN1 links Kinshasa to the DRC’s only maritime outlets, Matadi and Boma.
