© AP Photo/Ben Curtis
Joseph Mwangi, 34, is aided by ambulance workers as he lies in a state of shock after discovering the charred remains of two of his children, one aged 6 the other of unknown age, at the scene of a fuel explosion in Nairobi, Kenya, Monday, Sept. 12, 2011.
Nairobi, Kenya - Joseph Mwangi hoped and prayed his children had escaped the inferno caused when a leaking gasoline pipeline exploded on Monday, sending flames racing through a Nairobi slum and killing at least 75 people.
Then he saw two small blackened bodies in the wreckage of his home.
"Those were my children," he sobbed, collapsing in anguish amid the charred corrugated iron sheets and twisted metal.
Mwangi had been feeding his cow when the call went out around 9 a.m. - a section of pipe had burst near the river that cuts through the slum and gasoline was pouring out. Men, women and children grabbed pails, jerry cans, anything they could find to collect the flowing fuel.
Mwangi had planned to get a bucket and join them - he'd done so before with earlier diesel leaks without any problem, he said, and a bucket of fuel could pay a month's rent. "Everybody knows that fuel is gold," the 34-year-old said.
