Truck carrying people and cattle crashes head-on with tanker in Agaie area in the north-central Niger state.

A fuel tanker has collided with another truck in Nigeria, causing an explosion that killed at least 48 people, according to the country’s emergency response agency.

The fuel tanker was also carrying cattle in the Agaie area in north-central Niger state and at least 50 of them were burned alive, Abdullahi Baba-Arab, director-general of the Niger State Emergency Management Agency, said on Sunday.

Search-and-rescue operations were under way at the scene of the accident, he said.

Baba-Arab said initially that 30 bodies were found. But in a later statement, he said there were an additional 18 bodies of victims who were burned to death in the collision. He said the dead had been given a mass burial.

It was initially unclear how many others were injured.

Mohammed Bago, governor of Niger state, said residents of the affected area should remain calm and asked road users to “always be cautious and abide by road traffic regulations to safeguard lives and property”.

With the absence of an efficient railway system to transport cargo, fatal truck accidents are common along most of the major roads in Nigeria – Africa’s most populous country, with more than 220 million residents.

According to experts, the main causes are reckless driving, poor road conditions and poorly maintained vehicles.

In 2020 alone, there were 1,531 petrol tanker crashes resulting in 535 fatalities and 1,142 injuries, according to Nigeria’s Federal Road Safety Corps.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Ltd last week hiked the price of petrol by at least 39 percent, the second major increase in more than a year. But shortages have continued, forcing motorists to queue for hours in the country’s major cities and towns.