An overnight explosion at an illegal oil refining depot in Nigeria’s Imo State has left bodies “burned beyond recognition,” the state’s commissioner for petroleum resources said on Saturday.

“The fire outbreak occurred at an illegal bunkering site and it affected over 100 people who were burnt beyond recognition,” State Commissioner for Petroleum Resources Goodluck Opiah announced on Saturday, according to Nigeria’s Daily Post. “At the moment, I can’t really confirm the number of the deceased because many family members have removed the corpses of so many others,” Opiah added.

The commissioner said that the refinery’s owner has since been declared wanted by the government of Imo State, through which the Niger River runs to the country’s southern coast.

Oil from the region accounts for between 7% and 10% of the country’s GDP, but the damage wrought on the delta’s ecosystem has been catastrophic, and locals can wait decades for restitution. 

Illegal refining is a persistent problem in an area of the country wracked by poverty and unemployment.

With unemployment and poverty endemic in the region, locals often tap into the pipelines of the oil firms and refine the product themselves. This process, known as ‘bunkering’, is dangerous, and leaves pipelines leaking afterwards. As of last year, illegal bunkering cost Nigeria 200,000 barrels of oil per day, at a cost of $4.8 billion a year with oil at 2021 prices.

-RT