’18 dead in Sierra Leone gas explosion’

18 people were killed and many injured today in a blast triggered by a gas leak in Sierra Leone's capital.

18 people were killed and many injured today in a blast triggered by a gas leak in a residential building in Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown, witnesses and medical sources said.

Eighteen people died and dozens of others in the district, including Nigerian and Lebanese traders with stores nearby, were injured in the blast, some very seriously, according to hospital sources.

Witnesses said the explosion happened when firemen were setting up their equipment at the scene after being called by one of the residents of the building because of a fire.

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Deputy fire chief Ahmad Kamara-Bongay said the violence of the explosion was probably due to a gas leak after the fire broke out.

Government officials announced an enquiry into the cause of the accident in the seaside capital of the west African country, where much infrastructure was damaged or destroyed in a brutal civil war between 1991 and 2001.

President Ernest Bai Koroma and Vice President Samuel Sam-Soumana both went to Freetown’s Connaught Hospital, where most of those injured in the explosion were taken for treatment.

Sierra Leon, a former British colony, has yet to recover from the civil war in which more than 120,000 people were killed and thousands of civilian were injured or deliberately mutilated by rebels in a bloody conflict.

Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal

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