More than 100 burnt to death in Kenya fire – media

NAIROBI, (Reuters) – More than 100 people were burnt  to death and a similar number were taken to hospital after a  petrol fire ignited by a cigarette butt broke out in a densely  populated slum in the Kenyan capital, local media said today.
Police said a large number of people had been burnt to  death, but that no official count had been undertaken because  authorities were battling the fire before doing so.
Local television channels aired images of smouldering  skeletons as the fire raged through the slum. Badly burnt slum  dwellers staggered in a daze, skin peeling off their faces and  arms.
Citizen television quoted an official at the scene who said  he had counted more than 120 dead bodies. Capital FM radio said  the dead numbered more than 150.
“The scene is bad, there is a large number of people burnt  to death,” deputy police spokesman Charles Owino told Reuters.
“There are many bodies, we are yet to count them.”
Owino said the fire started after a fuel tank at a depot  belonging to the Kenya Pipeline Company spilled fuel into an  open sewer flowing through the slum.
Residents of the slum tried to scoop up the fuel from the  burst pipe and other from the sewer, but were burnt when the  petrol ignited after someone tossed a cigarette butt into the  sewer, Owino said.
Firefighters scrambled across the corrugated rooftops of  burning shacks to pour foam on petrol that flowed down the  slum’s muddy alleyways. Ambulances ferried dozens of wounded to  nearby hospitals.
“There is an informal school inside the slum, they have all  been burnt,” Daniel Mutinda, a spokesman the Kenya Red Cross,  said.