of 2 persons while seven others were injured. The incident reportedly occurred at about 11:30am.
A eyewitness said the gas in a gas tank escaped and made contact with a generator being used nearby while a welder was wielding the tank.
The eyewitness said the fire followed the vapour back to the gas plant located inside a filling station, RABENG Oil, and exploded. Two fuel attendants were caught in the fire while a 7-year-old boy sustained burns.
The 7-year-old boy and a fuel attendant simply identified as Ibrahim later died. The fire raged for almost two hours, and gutted many shops, apart from the filling station.
Ogun State Commandant of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, Akinwande Aboluwoye, said two persons died in the inferno, while seven others were injured.
He said, “The corpses of the deceased have been deposited in the mortuary of the State General Hospital, Ijaiye in Abeokuta, while those injured are receiving treatment in the same hospital.” He said the command dispatched its team to the scene of the fire.
He said, “This morning (Thursday) around 11.30am, we got an emergency call that a filling station caught fire in the Adigbe area of Abeokuta “Our officers and men quickly went there. On getting there, we found out that the incident was caused by a welder trying to weld very close to a gas filling plant.
And very close to that place, you can see a generator, which caught fire. Since we know that fire is just like a magnet, all the nearby shops and a filling station were gutted by fire.
“A motorcycle and another vehicle were also affected. “Presently, we have two dead casualities while seven people were seriously injured.