Mozambique’s president on Friday pledged support for the families of dozens of people, including children, who were killed when a fuel tanker exploded.



Filipe Nyusi said “tragedy has knocked on our door once again” in Tete province, where the accident happened on Thursday. Nyusi was recalling a 2015 incident in Tete in which about 70 people died after drinking contaminated beer.

Radio Mozambique initially said 73 people died in the tanker explosion on Thursday, though the Portuguese news agency Lusa, citing government data, said on Friday that 56 had been confirmed killed and that another 108 were injured.

There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy.

The justice ministry will head a commission to investigate the accident, Lusa reported. It said a government task force planned to head on Friday to the scene.

The truck was transporting fuel to Malawi from the port city of Beira on Thursday when the accident occurred, the government said in a statement on Thursday.

The injured were been taken to hospital about 90km away and a government team was due to travel to the area in Tete province, some 2,000km from the capital Maputo on Friday.

“Ambulances and medical personnel were deployed to the scene in order to assist the victims. The injured were evacuated to Tete hospital,” it said.

Authorities were investigating whether the truck was selling petrol when it exploded, or whether it had been ambushed by residents, said information ministry director João Manasses.

A local journalist reported that the truck had crashed on Wednesday and exploded on Thursday afternoon.

Mozambique is one of the world’s poorest nations, according to the International Monetary Fund, and following the end of its civil war in 1992 its population has suffered a severe economic crisis.

The government recently increased the price of fuel, after the value of the local currency – named metical – sunk against the dollar.