LAGOS, Nigeria — A tanker truck exploded outside an industrial plant in rural southeastern Nigeria, killing dozens of people who had lined up for gas to cook their Christmas meals, the authorities announced on Friday.

The explosion occurred on Thursday afternoon in the city of Nnewi, in Anambra State, according to Chuma Ibeabuchi, the local secretary of the Nigerian Red Cross Society. The inferno sent plumes of acrid black smoke skyward, and it took more than three hours to extinguish.

A number of bodies were charred beyond recognition, and dozens of survivors were hospitalized with severe burns. The government said that “tens of people” had been killed, though The Associated Press and Reuters, citing local observers, said that as many as 100 may have died.

One survivor, Emeka Uju, said that “people just burned like animals.” Another witness, Christopher Nwachukwu, told reporters that the blast may have been caused when employees started dispensing cooking gas from the truck without waiting for it to cool first. “This is a bleak Christmas,” he said.