List of tank truck fires and explosions

[2] The Los Alfaques disaster was a tank truck explosion that occurred near a holiday campsite on Tuesday 11 July 1978 in the municipality of Alcanar, Spain, and near the town of Sant Carles de la Ràpita.

The police and other rescue services did not offer any assistance until sometime after the blast, and so numerous bodies were removed by relatives or volunteer rescuers and privately buried, whilst others were cremated in the fire.

Most sources simply give a vague "over 100 dead" despite the official count of 96 recovered bodies and offer statements that "the final death toll could be much higher".

The Nigerian police reported that they had recovered 115 destroyed vehicles from the roadway in the aftermath of the accident, implying a substantially higher death toll than initially quoted.

According to local sources, the reason that so many cars were lined up on the motorway before the crash was that the State Police were exacting a toll from motorists from an impromptu roadblock they had set up.

The police claimed that when one of their vehicles arrived at the still blazing accident site shortly after the crash, it was attacked by a furious mob, set alight and destroyed, the four occupants escaping only after receiving a beating.

[citation needed] On 24 May 2004, in the village of Mihăilești, Buzău County, Romania, a tank truck loaded with ammonium nitrate rolled over and caught fire before exploding an hour later killing at least 18 people and injuring 13 others.

Ion Gherghe, the director of the Doljchim plant which produced the ammonium nitrate, and the managers of the two companies involved in the transport of this substance without safety measures, Mihai Gună and Ionel Ionuț Neagoe were charged with homicide by negligence and destruction of property.

[14] Police have described the carnage as Kenya's worst disaster in recent times, occurring in a country hit by frequent fuel shortages and just days after a supermarket fire killed 25.

[17] Following that blaze, the Daily Nation reported that Nairobi's three million inhabitants were served only by one fire station situated close to a traffic-choked business district.

[20] A tank truck explosion occurred in the Alakija area of Mile 2, a commercial district along the Badagry expressway, Lagos State, Nigeria.

[37] In separate statements, the Nigerian National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and the Federal Road Safety Commission of Rivers State gave the same figures for the incident.

[48] The scene of the crash was within close vicinity of Prince Nayef Arab University for Security Studies, as well as the headquarters of the Saudi Arabian National Guard, thus instigating the speculation of terrorist collusion or perpetration.

However, a police spokesman stated that this was inexorably not the case, explaining "the truck driver was surprised by a road accident on its route, causing it to crash into one of the pillars of the bridge".

[70] This incident was reported to have occurred on 7 January 2014 at Kirikiri, Apapa, a port area in Lagos State, Nigeria, when a tank truck loaded with about 8,718 U.S. gallons (33.00 m3) of gasoline rammed into parked vehicles.

Around 6:00 am local time, a tank truck carrying 13,209 U.S. gallons (50.00 m3) of fuel overturned due to the driver sleeping on N-5 National Highway near Ahmedpur East, Bahawalpur District, in Punjab, Pakistan.

[94] A large number of people busy working in mango farms beside the road (one source estimated about 500[95]), including men, women, and children, subsequently gathered at the site to collect leaking gasoline.

[96][99] There were conflicting preliminary reports about the cause of the explosion: some said the fuel was ignited by an attempt to light a cigarette near the overturned tank truck,[96] and others blamed a spark from one of the numerous cars and motorcycles that rushed to the scene.

[103] On 28 June 2018 a tank truck fully loaded with petroleum product fell from the Otedola Bridge at the Lagos end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.

[104][105] On August 6, 2018, the collision of a liquefied petroleum gas tank truck with an articulated lorry carrying flammable solvents and a car transporter resulted in a huge explosion on the A14 motorway within Borgo Panigale, a neighborhood of Bologna, Italy.

It was a case of boiling-liquid expanding-vapor explosion (BLEVE), where nearly all the tank truck cargo combusted in a matter of seconds upon release, generating a tremendous amount of thermal radiation.

[129] A video was posted by local news channel Kwanza TV on Twitter, showing groups of people attempting to gather fuel around the tank truck.

[148] The Texas Shriners Hospital in the United States, donated 5,425 square inches (35,000 cm2) of skin grafts to start treatment for patients who were burned in the fire.

[149] On 6 August 2020, a month after the tragedy, hundreds of relatives and friends of the victims organized a tribute and inaugurated a mural at the place where the explosion occurred with photos and names of the deceased to remember them.

[158][159][160] At approximately 10:00 pm on 5 November 2021, a fuel tank truck carrying gasoline attempted to make a turn outside the Choithram Supermarket in Wellington, a suburb of Freetown.

[164] The mayor of Freetown, Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, said that the damage was exacerbated by people who gathered at the lorry, scooped the leaking fuel in containers and placed them in close proximity to the crash scene.

[162] Sierra Leone's president Julius Maada Bio, who was attending the United Nations climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, offered condolences and promised support to the victims' families.

[171] President Bio declared a three-day national mourning and ordered all flags to be flown at half-mast, and indicated that a task force will be set up to look into what happened, and will provide recommendations that will help to avoid similar tragedies in the future.

[173][174] Haiti, hit with an economic crisis worsened by an earthquake four months earlier, was unable to adequately treat victims of the explosion, with hospitals undersupplied and in disarray.

[195] On 15 October 2024, a fuel tank truck overturned and spilt gasoline near Majiya, in the Taura local government area, Jigawa State, Nigeria.