A gas explosion in Nigeria's commercial capital Lagos killed at least 15 people, injured many more and destroyed around 50 buildings Sunday, emergency services said. "15 bodies have been recovered now. So many people have been injured," national emergency services spokesman Ibrahim Farinloye told AFP, adding that around 50 buildings were also destroyed in the explosion which was followed by a fire. The blast happened at around 8:00 am (0700 GMT) destroyed around 50 buildings in the residential district of Abule Ado. According to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) the blast was caused by a truck that "hit gas bottles stacked up in a gas processing plant. "The impact of the explosion was so huge that it led to the collapse of nearby houses and damage to an NNPC pipeline," the company added. "We are recovering dead bodies as we speak and putting them in bags," said local Red Cross official Adebola Kolawale. "We have a school here and it's a residential area. And we have a trade fair here as well." In front of a crowd of onlookers, rescue workers sought to remove rubble from a girls boarding school which has more than 250 pupils. Explosions of pipelines and tanker trucks are frequent occurences in Nigeria, where most people live in poverty even though the country is the biggest producer of oil on the continent, with around two million barrels per day. Some accidents happen when residents try to siphon off oil or petrol from pipelines or when tanker drivers have accidents on the country's ill-maintained roads. joa-spb-cl/pvh/jj