The fire spread through homes and a school [AFP]

According to the humanitarian group, the explosion was caused by road construction machinery piercing a pipe carrying refined fuel through a village on the outskirts of Lagos on Thursday.
 
Sule Maicube, the Red Cross official, said that the flames from the fire spread through nearby homes and a school.

He said: "At least 20 people have now been taken to hospital."
 
"The fire occurred in a residential area, and it is still continuing. The [surrounding] buildings are in flames."
 
The fire has raged for at least seven hours.

Sarah Simpson, a journalist speaking from Port Harcourt in the Niger Delta, said that very little has changed regarding the country's attempts to avoid disasters that can occur around oil pipelines.

She said: "Investment and money has not been put into making these pipelines safer."

Witnesses said local people were trying to help the fire service to put out the blaze, using sand and water.

Pipeline fires are common in Nigeria. More than 400 people died in two pipeline explosions in Lagos in 2006, and at least 40 died in December last year.
 
Some fires are started when residents attempt to take oil from damaged or sabotaged pipelines.

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