153 Killed in Pakistan Trying to Steal Fuel from Overturned Tanker

By Douglas V. Gibbs
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host

The media is portraying the explosion and deaths as a sign of poverty.  In my opinion, it is a sign of stupidity.  While I don’t want to seem insensitive, and I am sad people died, I must ask who in their right mind runs towards a fuel spill accident to gather dripping fuel, well knowing that an explosion could be the result?

While the poverty, as the media is putting it, encouraged the Muslims in Pakistan to rush to an overturned tanker truck with their fuel containers in hand after a mosque’s loudspeaker announced the wreck and that fuel was leaking from it, the circumstances are disturbing.  The willingness to follow the call for stealing the fuel as it leaked out, a massive number of villagers surrounded the wreck to collect the fuel, and then the tanker exploding almost sounds like something we would see in a movie.  When the tanker exploded, it engulfed the surrounding people in flames as they screamed in terror.  Their motorcycles and vehicles also were burned in blast.

One report states that the explosion resulted from ignition by one of the villager’s cigarettes.

What happened almost sounds like a scene from Zoolander.

Sadly, the stupidity led to the death of 153 people, with dozens more in critical condition.

One villager said he ran toward the smoke with buckets of water and sand, but the heat was too intense for him to reach the victims.

“I could hear people screaming, but I couldn’t get to them,” he said.

– Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary