Samuel Moses, an attendant, said he was at the third pump selling petrol
to a customer when he saw smoke bellowing by the side of the
tanker, which made people to scamper for safety.
``No one can say the cause but I was selling petrol when I saw the smoke
and raised an alarm. In seconds, all of us were running for our
dear lives as we know what it means.
``We even forgot about the fire extinguishers and other things put in place to fight fire at the station.
``We thank God that nobody died and all the 16 vehicles, including
five other tankers were safely evacuated from the station,’’ Moses said.
No official of the station was available for comments on the incident at the time of this report.
Some sympathisers at the scene, however, said the fire could have been
better controlled if the fire service had got to the filling station
on time.
Isa James, a civil servant who witnessed the onset of the incident, said
the fire service arrived at the scene more than 20 minutes after
the fire started.
He said ``look at the distance between the fire service office and the
NNPC; but it took the officers over 20 minutes to arrive, this is just
unfortunate.
