December 27, 2006: Nigerian gas explosion outcome [very graphic]
 

http://cellar.org/2006/nigeriangasexplosion.jpg

The IotD for April 10 2006 was Nigerians gathering gasoline with any available vessel, after a pipeline break. At the time we speculated on what would happen if someone was smoking around the break. Someone figured the fuel was diesel and therefore a little safer.

Maybe that one was, but not this one. 260 Nigerians are thought to be dead, as a result of a gas spill exploding after vandals broke into a pipeline there yesterday.

Of a quick review of a Google news search for the terms nigerian gas explosion, very few sites are willing to carry this graphic shot of the outcome. I don't generally pick items because they're graphic, but in this case we have documented the practice of gas theivery eight months ago, and this shot completes the story.

!!!
 

Thanks for posting this. I heard about this in the news, but there were no pictures. I thought of the old thread.

You just have to shake your head. The sad thing is that it will almost certainly happen again.

Sadly, these pipeline "breaks" are seldom failures in the pipeline, but more often than not the result of intentional acts. Energy is a valuable commodity, and relatively easy to steal. There have been other such tragic events, and there will be more, as long as people are poor and there is gasoline flowing through their communities and accessible backcountry pipelines.

Inappropriate fashion comment: the dude's green and blue outfit is *awesome*.

you insensitive bastard!
 

Thanks very much for showing it - I wouldn't have gone looking for it, but I would have been curious all the same. It's human nature I guess - look at the crowd it drew in real life after all.

Horrible tragedy, but was obviously waiting to happen and it won't be the last.

I feel for the families of the dead - and hope there aren't too many injured. Having been on a burns ward in England I shudder to think how Nigeria's hospitals would could with an influx of severe burns.

Message from Godministrator, @Ibram: You are banned, from life.

It's important to find the positive in any situation, els. ;)

(for those who are Humor Impaired, the above comment is a joke and in no way intended to negate the human component and horror of this tragedy)

you insensitive bastard!
 

Does no one think to bury these lines?

These are from other news sources, both are intersting as well, good composition on the second one.

As bad as the charred bodies are, at least they are dead. Can you imagine the ones who survived? Burn injuries are the most painful. :sniff:

The bodies remind me of the ones I saw at Pompei many years ago.

Burying them costs more than 260 Nigerian lives, apparently.

Why so many lives to bury the lines, mines? Were they burying the lines... I did not get that... I got that they were stealing the fuel from it.

That was my first, thought too. I've only seen pictures, but I was a kid and it stuck with me...

What I meant was that the amount that "the company" would have to pay to bury the lines would cost more than these dead people.

Got it... no inflection in text.

Second degree burn injuries are painful. Third degree are more likely to be fatal, but typically the victim feels no pain as all the nerve endings get burned off.

yah. TMI.

Hope you get a good night's sleep.

If you have 3rds all over you, sure... I have had em' in limited spaces. They HURT, at least the surrounding area sure as hell does.

Sadly, the charring on these bodies comes mostly fromt he subcutaneous fat cells, sort of like when you forget you put steaks or chicken on the grill and the when you take them off you hardly recognize what the are.

I wonder if Americans, who lead the world in obesity, would make better char then others around the world?

Uh, thanks for that visual. The description is almost worse than the pics! :greenface

This is one of my most nightmarish things. My dad was a firefighter. One time they were digging up the tanks of a defunct gas station. Something in a piece of equipment sparked and three workers . . . POOF. Right in my little home town. My dad had just gone off shift . . . as a volunteer firefighter he was called back to help put out the fire. I've often thought of what he must have felt seeing that and what a close miss it was.

When I was a kid there was a fire in a tunnel here. A tanker truck exploded. They showed a picture of a person sitting at the steering wheel of a car with a gruesome grin. It's like they never even knew what hit them and all that was left was the metal frame of the car and this person's bones.

I have hated tunnels ever since. And gas stations. :worried:

One time hubby let the tank overflow. We had no idea it was overflowing until we saw someone glance under our van. There was a huge flood of gas all around. I freaked, because all three of my kids were in the van. It took forever for the gas station attendant to find the neutralizer. Any little thing and we would have all been gone. Fortunately, the gas station led out to a parking lot that was slightly down hill, so we were able to push the van out of the gas flood without starting it . . . or making a spark.

A suggestion to the folks running the Cellar IOTD: perhaps it would be good if, when running a stomach-churning image like this, you had a "are you sure you want to see this?" button to click first, rather than seeing a gagger image the moment you visit the IOTD. There's been a few medical-related images in recent months that left me queasy. I love the IOTD - it's a daily stop - but please, give us a chance to look the other way first, okay?

I've been saying for 20+ years that one of the best things the USA could do for the world (and make a few export $$ at it, too) is develop safe, cheap alternate energy technology for developing countries. This is a good argument WHY. It'd let us manufacture something (a novel idea in itself these days), would lower pressure on non-renewable oil, and would be waaaaaay safer than this sort of thing. Were people going to power cars with what they stole, or cook with it, or what? If it's cooking, there must be a solar or alcohol technology or SOMEthing better than, literally in this case, "cooking with gas".

And heck, I guess I'm an insensitive bastard, too. That is a hell of a pattern on the fellow's outfit. Looks like we know now where James Brown's extra stage outfits got to after he died!

[very graphic] doesn't do it, eh? :shock:

The IOTD has a "blog view" option, and a lot of people just have it bookmarked (so they never see the thread title as a link from the main board.) That's how I used to visit for a very long time before I discovered the rest of the board.

Oh, that's right! That's what I used to do, too.

SORRY!! :redface:

I saw the Branch Davidian autopsy photos at a conference. These aren't so bad, even if they are fresher.

Buried lines must come up a certain locations for taps and controls...
These lines also usually run at over 1000psi. A pinhole puts out insane amounts of the fluid being transported. So if you have any line to the surface someone can find it and breach it.

True Spuck. But in developing countries the standard mo of companies is not to bury any of it.

Is this really Jimmy Carter?

I agree. It would have been nice if Dutch Reagan hadn't undone the policies Carter implemented to promote alternative fuels. :mad:

Seems to me, it would be better for the world if we did GuyNamedGuy's suggestions for ourselves. ;)

[quote=wolf]Second degree burn injuries are painful. Third degree are more likely to be fatal, but typically the victim feels no pain as all the nerve endings get burned off.

fortunately, long before these victims received the burns you see they died. the inhalation of the superheated gasses, very quickly killed them, then their bodies burned.

btw....my coment on us being fuel was not intended as a coment on this picture. it is more of a comment on our place in the universe.

I suppose the people trying to steal gasoline bear no responsibility for their fate...and survivors of those electrocuted trying to steal electricity should be suing the power company for negligence in not burying the power lines to protect theives from temptation.

Obviously the solution to kids killed by joyriding in stolen cars must to bury all autos when not in use.

In this time and in this place I am a liberal. Probably even a bleeding heart by other people's definition. But I do have a right-wing family history to draw upon which makes me generally unsympathetic to those who break the law.

BUT.

This is not the US, or the UK. I doubt the people stealing this fuel had the means to obtain it in any way other than to risk their lives. And if they did, and were simply lazy, lazy people who couldn't be arsed to get a job, you can bet they weren't on the government tit which allowed them to opt out of the ratrace.

There are a small percentage of people in every society who will take what is given with both hands, and won't understand the words Hard Work or Self-Esteem if they were tattooed in mirror language on their forehead.

But in countries with no safety net there are also intelligent, hardworking, desperate people who perhaps would benefit the world more if million dollar companies considered people as an investment as well as pipes and tubes. I doubt children in the US or the UK starve to death these days, or die for want of simple healthcare. Until that can be said worldwide, who are we to judge?

From National Geographic website... :(
note - The picture of the man washing soot from his face is chrisinhouston's second picture.

You mean like these guys?

Actually, Nigeria is a very rich country. It's just that all of the money being made from natural resources seems to be concentrating in the hands of the wealthiest and most corrupt individuals.

Yes - I just bookmarked cellar.org/iotd when I originally found the site, looking for pictures of the "purple polar bear" a few years ago. So when I look at it I get the image right off the bat. Sometimes it can be a jolt. I'm using a laptop - do you have any idea how hard it is to clean barf out of a laptop keyboard?!? ;)

Yeah, from a very quick glance, self.org has sort of the right idea. I don't know anything about them or what their agenda is. I'm older, so I lok at it from a 1970's Mother Earth News angle. But the technology exists to wean a lot of the world demand of oil. I just hope the USA can switch away in time, before the press of events forces it on us in a painful and possibly fatal way to our nation and our characteristic culture. SF writers such as Lester Del Rey and Robert Heinlein have been predicting this sort of thing since about 1940 - and 67 years later we're still sliding towards oblivion. As Heinlein himself put it, we're "Too fat, dumb and happy", like the Romans watching the Visigoths (or whoever it was that sacked the city) approach the city in 410 AD and doing nothing. We've been sitting back doing basically nothing since 1973 - 34 years now!! - while our hard-earned treasure gets shipped overseas to enrich regimes which do not like us or are actively hostile to us. Now look at the mess we're in, basically over oil. How much longer can we go on?

Heinlein makes a very very good point in his short story THE ROADS MUST ROLL (1940). Every tank, jeep, airplane and every ship except subs and aircraft carriers run on oil. If a big war breaks out, oil will be a military priority, just as it was in WW2. The difference is, most folks live in suburbs now, not in the towns themselves as most of them did in 1941. Commute distances are many times what they were in 1941. Streetcar lines, interurban trolley lines and passenger trains are basically extinct now. If we can't get gas, how do we get to work? If we can't get to work, where does our country end up?

Now, we're going to be competing with China and India, the awakening economic giants, for Middle East oil. Great - just what we need. That'll be what kicks off the next big war, I suspect about 2020 or so. Time to get out of importing oil while the getting out's good.


Setting a good example for the world is supposed to be the USA's *JOB*, for heaven's sake. Cutting CO2 emissions can't hurt anything. And we can still make some nice low and medium-tech jobs manufacturing and selling alternate energy technology, and making some export bucks would be really nice these days!

And I do like Thomas Freidman's term for countries, like Nigeria, Saudi arabia, etc. that are rich in natural resources and yet the money never ends up enriching the majority of people - "Kleptocracies".

Well, that does certainly sound wonderful, noble and high-minded. "...considered people as an investment...".

What does it mean?

That "million dollar companies" (it doesn't take much to make a "million dollar company" these days, by the way) should give people money in the hopes that they will "perhaps benefit the world" in some unspecified way?

That's not what the word "investment" usually means. It sounds rather more like "charity", or "casting bread upon the waters".

If that's what you actually mean, you should say so.

It depends how you define charity.

Cut price fuel programmes in poor areas that the supply lines run through would probably save them money in the long run. Same with sponsoring schools or training.

They are commerical enterprises set up solely to make a profit and I do accept that. But they can probably spend to save in some of the areas they run through - in the same way burying or reinforcing the pipes is a spend to save measure. Only in this case it would mean less corpses, which has to be a good thing surely?

I tend to take that to mean a more wholistic approach by a corporation, making their presence a part of the fabric of a community rather than just running a pipeline through. For instance, employing local labor, developing good will, giving back to the community in some form.

When we improve a community in general, providing jobs, beautifying or making a community safer and more livable, people will tend to have a bit more loyalty to the company.

Paternalistic, yes, we could look at it that way: the grand poobah of the U.S., but it can also be seen as a hand-up and not a hand-out.

Really? And here I thought it was all about politics!

No, seriously. I have always that the major roadblock in progressive development of this sort was because of fights between corporations and politicians who struggle to maintain a balance of power. There doesn't seem to be enough incentive to tip the scale one way or the other, so no one ever seems to do anything dramatic enough to make a difference.

Maybe the laziness is on our part for not pushing more, but from what I see in the press, there is a whole lot of pushing going on from the activist realm, but still no progress.

It amazes me that no major corporation has really invested in being the first out there with some cutting edge technology. Are they looking into it at all? Or do they really just not care?

I know that some of the issues with solar is about cost effectiveness. I think of software programmers and how there are beta testers that have a go at things and work out the kinks. I wonder if the big guys can think in that small of a way to make it all worthwhile?

Or is it still because the power companies don't want to reinvent themselves?

I mean, cars and highways is becoming so old-fashioned in a way, but people don't want to give up their cars and some of us can't. Not because of miles, but because of ability. I am physically incapable of riding a bike, especially with three little kids. So, where are the radical ideas of creating a transport that really works instead of continuing to rely on the same old, same old. Obviously, no one likes mass transit. So come up with something new.

There are hundreds of thousands of brilliant minds out there. Look at the software that is created, the books that are written, the medical advances, the wonderfully creative science fiction that is written!!

So where are the brilliant ideas that are going to save us from mediocrity!!!!!

:lame:

I don't remember seeing that in the Constitution or hearing it in school. Who determined that is our *JOB*? Lovely thought, but get real. How long do you think it would be before those "nice low and medium-tech jobs" were exported too? 30days?
And how many of these miracle cures would the third world buy? One, that's all they need to copy or contract a cheaper source.
The problem with the Mother Jones/Whole Earth view, is that it harkens back to a time when the capitalists cared about the country. Long gone, I'm afraid. Now it's the Buck, the whole Buck and nothing but the Buck. :(

I think we saw evolution in action.. The stupid dying and preventing more stupids from occurring.

(with the notable exception of the poor immolated children)

1) This gasoline lake was around long enough for anyone in the area to leave. (say because their house was there)

2) Every single person there was getting the gasoline specifically because it was flammable ! They can't be putting it in cars as how far will any car go on a large baggy of dirt filled gasoline?!

3) They likely wanted it to start cooking fires more easily. (because it is flammable!!) So we have people who are standing in a flammable puddle/s so they can collect something specifically because it lights easily.

4) Not one of those people had to have it. You can't tell me they would've died or starved or ? because they failed to have a pail of gasoline..

They were "stupid" they got culled..:greenface :( :yeldead: :sniff:

sad, but true

As long as the USA wants to claim to be the world leader, to be the example everyone else should follow, then that's when it becomes our *job* to live up to the standards we preach to the world, and set a good example for everyone. Otherwise, we're basically just a bunch of rich thugs with guns, and deserve to get treated as such.

The Constitution is a wonderful document - the Do-It-Yourself Government manual - but it obviously is not the be-all end-all of our government; that's why federal, state and local laws exist to supplement it, and what the Constitution clearly states can still be overridden by local laws. (For example, the Second Amendment clearly states "the right to bear firearms shall not be infringed"..... but any police officer will disagree that that phrase can be interpreted to mean that a criminal waving a firearm around cannot be disarmed while being arrested, or that schools, banks, businesses et al cannot ask people not to bring firearms into their offices. And I agree with the spirit of the Second Amendment! I own guns. I like guns. I think they're fun. But I don't think the Second Amendment gives me unlimited rights in regards to owning and using them, either. Laws in all fifty states uphold that view, contrary to the simple world of the Second Amendment.)

We're doing lots of things nowadays which are not defined in the Constitution, but which become necessary once a nation

a) changes over to a modern technological society and
b) wants (or is forced to be) a world leader.

To give an analogy: there is no law which says parents have to set a good example for their children. Yet everyone wants parents to do so. Everyone complains loudly when parents fail to do so.

Whether we like it or not, we're sort of a parent or older sibling (I hated to say "big brother") to the world. In return for helping out folks, we want/expect the world to sell us unlimited amounts of cheap natural resources - something they're not obligated to do at all. Our "pal"
the Shah of Iran started the whole oil price rise/embargo in 1973, right after the Yom Kippur war. Our good old buddy, the Shah.

Now, we could easily go back to being an isolationist country. We tried this during the 1920s and got World War 2 partially as a result. We tried it during the period from Jan 20 2001 to about 8:50 AM Sep 11 2001 and gee, that didn't work out too well, either, last I checked. With so many dependencies on foreign resources, we're stuck with being

As for the technology, yeah, I guess the jobs will eventually get offshored, but it would sure be nice to at least *try* to bring some manufacturing back into the country. Or at least own some patents for the technology. And there are jobs that would need to stay in the USA - such as washing solar panels, maintaining windmills, and so forth, which would be no doubt undercut by cheap foreign and/or illegal immigrant labor. But at least tens of billions of dollars would not be going overseas to hostile regimes, and we'd cut environmental damage costs which add up in quiet, hidden ways. We forget that $3,000 of a new car is for the platinum in the catalytic converter, for example.

Or we can go down the tubes. It's our choice. This country is no longer really willing to pledge its lives or its fortunes to defend itselfand its interests; when those are gone, the "sacred honor" is a meaningless phrase, a bag of hot air. I want this country to rise to the occasion, to save itself while it still has time, to show it can still work and sacrifice to keep its most precious resources - its independence and freedom. To show the world how it's done, and why the restof the world ought to respedt us. And hey, let's make money while we're at it - I got no problem with that. But there are days where I think I'm the only one left who feels we should sacrifice, or work, or do any-damn-thing, to save ourselves.

It's almost like a huge PR problem. A problem of how to get everyone on the same page. There are too many factions with too many different interests and we can't sit down and see how they can all mesh.

It's like arguing with an SO, but at completely cross purposes. Why argue? Aren't we all in this together?

It is that concept of ONE nation, that we are all in this together that seems to have gotten lost. Or maybe it was never there.

In the movie, The Good Shepherd, Matt Damon's character is talking to a mobster. The mobster says the Italians have their family and their church, the Irish have the homeland . . . but what have the [CIA white dudes] got? Matt Damon's character responds "The USA. The rest of you people are just visiting."

Until we can erase that attitude we are helpless to solve the endemic problems plaguing our land. If we can't fix things at home, how are we supposed to help others? We just end up exporting our own problems and making them global.

No.....not anymore. They have a new allie in offshore labor, they don't need you or the country because they can go live anywhere.:(

What I've been hearing is we are the sole remaining superpower, and the World's cop, not one word about being the World leader.So you're saying what much of the rest of the World has been saying for 100 years. No. Disarming a threat or restricting you on my (private) property does not violate the language or intent of the Constitution. Nobody ever said it gave everyone "unlimited rights in regards to owning and using them".That's what I asked!!!! Who in hell decided we are to be a World leader????
Who is everyone???
Says who?????????????
So why do we owe them anything?The Shaw said we needed to replace the jet fighters he lost. Carter said no, we're not giving you jets, buy your own. So the Shaw, in order to afford new jets, raised the money the only way he could....oil. His oil, that's his right.
Military bases and spies, all over the World, is hardly isolationist.
Patents aren't worth a tinkers damn in the third world. Those tens of billions are at least bringing something useful, unlike the tens of billions in foreign aid or tens of billions walmart is exporting.
I've got two, brand new in the box, catalytic converters I bought retail for less than $100 each.

Good for you, but what you want is not necessarily a consensus nor is it our government's policy. Just because you feel something is the right thing to do doesn't make it others peoples reality.

For the record, I agree with much of what you said and stand for. I do what I can as far as buying American, avoiding evil walmart, etc. Buy I also realize I (we) are in the minority and powerless to change the course of the ship of state, or the minds of the me first, majority.:(

I continually vascillate between these feelings of powerlessness and the righteous feeling that we should at least try.

But then, where do we start? How do we change the perspective of society, of government and of the world?

But then, if we got everyone to sit up and care we would have huge arguments about how to go about fixing things and then what?

I think I need another dose of oblivion. :hide:

You misspelled the government. Nigeria's oil industry is nationalized.

hmmmm... upon further review public private partnership...

Think globally, act locally. Get the local politicians on board or replaced. Then, if they rise through the ranks, make sure they retain the same principles. Ride herd, babysit, cheerlead, let them know they can depend on their power base without large corporate donations, so they don't get corrupted. Oh, and if they do....dump 'em and bring up the reserve candidate.

If enough people do this, these politicians will eventually become the majority. ;)

Lovely sentiment, but I mean how do we REALLY get it done?

I live in one of the most progressive areas of the U.S. and we can't seem to get it figured out . . .

Look at Pelosi's rise to power. The woman is seriously lame. She spoke at my husband's law school graduation and my response was "I'm never voting for her again." She was SO empty-headed.

Then the good ones, like Feinstein, don't want to go there . . .

It's a thankless task and there's no one who wants to do a good enough job!!!!!

You can't just elect them and walk away...they gotta know you're watching and appreciative.;)

I heard on the news that this particular pipeline was buried. Some organised thieves dug down and holed it during the night, and made off with a lot of fuel. Unfortunately they just left it leaking. The next day locals discovered the leak and crowded in to get some for themselves...

Omg thats friggen sad.

now that you've made your obligatory seven posts, feel free to post your spam. Oh, and welcome to the cellar!