Lagos (Alshahid)-At least 92 people including women and children were killed Thursday after a gasoline tanker crashed on the east-west road in Nigeria’s oil-producing Niger Delta, and caught fire.

The tanker driving in the southern Rivers state swerved trying to avoid three oncoming vehicles including a bus, said Kayode Olagunju, head of the Federal Road Safety Commission in the state.

The authorities say the vehicle did not immediately burst into flames so people rushed to scoop up the fuel.

Several other persons sustained various degrees of burns while good Samaritans rushed survivors to the hospitals.

No fewer than five buses and scores of motorbikes were destroyed in the inferno, which also affected a section of a filling station, some distance away from the scene of the tragic incident.

The Niger Delta has been an oil-producing region for decades, yet the majority of those living there remain desperately poor and mostly without access to proper medical care, education, or work.

Anger over the situation has prompted young people to attack foreign oil firms based there and steal fuel from pipelines.

The crude that flows from the Niger Delta is the lifeblood of Nigeria’s economy. The OPEC member now pumps out about 2.4 million barrels of oil a day, making it Africa’s biggest producer.