AMIR SHAH Associated Press writer | Posted: Sunday, May 2, 2004 12:00 am
KABUL, Afghanistan - Two fuel tankers exploded Sunday in a bustling marketplace in western Afghanistan, killing at least 25 people in what appeared to be an accident, the Afghan government said. A provincial official said 32 were killed.
Up to 40 more people were reported injured in the blast in Azizabad, a town 360 miles west of the capital, Kabul, in Herat province.
Herat provincial government spokesman Ghulam Mohammad Masoum said repair work on a tanker truck appeared to have triggered the devastating 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 blasts ignited more fuel at a nearby gas station. The explosions destroyed cars and shops, and bodies were scattered across the marketplace.
Most of the injured were rushed to hospitals in the city of Herat, 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."
After more than two decades of war, many of impoverished Afghanistan's gas stations and fuel tankers are in poor repair.
Most Afghans buy gasoline - much of it smuggled and of poor quality - from roadside shacks where it is poured from battered cans into their vehicle.
In March, a firm from the United Arab Emirates firm signed a $231 million deal to build a network of modern fuel stations and pipelines over the next nine years.