Kinshasa, July 3
More than 230 persons were killed when a fuel tanker overturned and exploded in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, unleashing a fireball that tore through a town where people were watching the Football World Cup tie on TV. Officials said today that the explosion late on Friday also injured 110 persons, adding that the death toll could rise.

They described scenes of devastation in the town of Sange, where houses were burnt and bodies littered the streets. Some people died while trying to steal fuel leaking from the tanker, but most people were killed in their homes and a cinema. Many of the bodies were charred beyond recognition.

United Nations helicopters began airlifting injured people to hospital, while Congo’s army, which lost a number of men in the blast, has sent soldiers in to help with the rescue. “The death toll is not final, but the latest we have is 230 dead and 111 wounded,” said a spokesman for the UN mission.

Marcellin Cisambo, governor of South Kivu province, had earlier given a slightly lower toll. The blast occurred when the fuel truck overturned, leaked fuel and then exploded, he said.

It was not immediately clear what caused the accident, but local people said the truck, which was part of a convoy, stopped when the road seemed to crumble, toppling the vehicle and spilling fuel. Fire then erupted.

“It’s a terrible scene. There are lots of dead bodies on the streets. The population is in terrible shock, no one is crying or speaking,” Jean-Claude Kibala, South Kivu’s vice-governor, said from Sange, which is between the towns of Bukavu and Uvira. “We are trying to see how we can coordinate with to manage the situation,” he added.

Roads in the area are notoriously bad after years of war and neglect in the vast central African nation. “Some people were killed trying to steal the fuel, but most of the deaths were of people who were indoors watching the (World Cup) match,” Cisambo said.

There have been numerous similar accidents across Africa, where fuel crowds gather around fuel tankers involved in crashes, only for the tanker to explode.

Millions of football fans across Africa were watching Ghana, the continent’s last team in the World Cup, play Uruguay in the quarterfinals of the tournament on Friday evening.

Congo’s weak government has difficulty providing even the most basic services, so U.N. peacekeepers began airlifting some of the wounded to nearby hospitals and aid workers were called in to help with medical treatment.