Kerosene Explosion Kills 14-Year Old Girl

A teenage girl of 14 years, Miss Jenipher Chinweze last Wednesday died of burns she incurred from a kerosene lantern explosion.

The girl who was residing with her parents at No 33 Abba Street in the Diobu area of Port Harcourt had bought a litre of kerosene from a nearby shop, unsuspecting the product was adulterated.

Narrating the incident, her father, Chief Mike Chinweze to The Tide that on Sunday, April 22, 2012, Jenipher came back from the church and was at home with her mother and siblings when power was seized.

According to him, the girl’s mother asked her to go for kerosene to refill the lantern which was virtually empty as it was dark.

After buying the product and attempting to fill it, he said the lantern exploded setting the girl ablaze.

Chief Chinweze, a Port Harcourt-based businessman further told The Tide that the girl’s screaming attracted his wife and other persons who scrambled to save her life.

“They began to pour water on her to put off the flame but parts of her body were already burnt”, he said.

She, as Chief Chinweze hinted, was immediately rushed to the Braithwaite Memorial Hospital for treatment and there Jenipher died after two weeks.

Shedie Okpara