Kenya fire: Nairobi pipeline blaze 'kills 100'

More than 100 people have died after a petrol pipeline explosion and fire in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, police say.

The blast took place in the city's Lunga Lunga industrial area, and police and troops cordoned off the area as firefighters battled fierce flames in the surrounding shanty town.
The pipeline runs through the densely populated Sinai slum area between Nairobi's city centre and the airport.
More than 80 casualties have been taken to hospitals, officials said.
Reports suggest Monday's blast may have been sparked by a cigarette butt being thrown into an open sewer that was filling with fuel.

At the scene

A local reporter:

The scene is horrific, with charred bodies all around. I cannot differentiate between men and women or boys and girls. All that is left are bones, and the only way to identify the children is from their smaller skeletons.
Many houses - shacks roofed with metal sheets - have been razed to the ground and plumes of smoke hang in the air.
The police, paramedics and firefighters are here but have not yet started picking up bodies. They are still assessing the situation.
Residents are walking around in a state of shock. Most have lost family or friends, and they feel helpless, as there is nothing they can do.

The fuel had leaked from a tank in a depot belonging to the Kenya Pipeline Company, police spokesman Charles Owino told Reuters news agency.

Residents said the spill prompted many people to rush and collect leaking fuel.
"Then there was a loud bang, a big explosion, and smoke and fire burst up high," resident Joseph Mwego told Agence France-Presse.
Parts of bodies littered the remains of burning shacks for some 300m (1,000ft) around the site of the blast, locals said.
Bodies were also seen floating in a nearby river, into which burns victims had reportedly leapt after catching fire.
Tin-roofed huts were built directly adjacent to the pipeline in the area, residents say.
There have been other deaths involving people collecting leaking fuel.
More than 100 people died in Molo, western Kenya, in 2009 after a fire on an overturned tanker.