By Dan Isaacs BBC correspondent in Amiyi-Uhu

All that remains of the scores of people who died in this disaster is a river of ashes.

Small groups of people pray silently at the scene, grieving over loved ones lost in the inferno that erupted when a spark ignited petrol gushing from a break in the pipeline.

The pipeline is thought to have been deliberately ruptured

Dark clouds and torrential rain beat down on two men carrying a white coffin.

They have come not to find the body of their brother, because none of the piles of brittle white bones that lie scattered around could possibly be identified.

Instead they use a shovel to collect ash to place inside a coffin.

In the distance a woman cries out in anguish as she approaches, asking why this has been allowed to happen. Whole families have been wiped out here.

An accidental spark

Some of the stray sandals that litter the area are clearly those of small children who had come like everyone else to scoop up the petrol into buckets and jerry cans.

This is a poor rural village and life is hard. When valuable fuel was there for the taking, people knew the risks but chose to ignore them.

There is anger and recrimination over the devastating explosion

And when police tried to cordon the area off they were overwhelmed by crowds of villagers determined to collect the fuel, courting inevitable disaster.

Around here they say this pipeline had been leaking for more than two weeks and that village elders had contacted the state owned oil company responsible for its maintenance.

But for some inexplicable reason nothing had been done to shut down the flow of fuel through the pipe.

The accidental spark from a motorbike was tragically inevitable.

The owner had collected all the fuel he could carry, but when he kick-started the machine it was engulfed in flames that spread throughout the small ravine causing such terrible destruction.

The bike now lies abandoned, just one more charred skeleton on a dirt track at the bottom of the hill.

Tough questions

A local politician Bernard Orji - here to pay his respects at the scene - asks how this could have been and refuses to blame the villagers for what happened.

"How can people who live in such poverty be expected to keep away from something so valuable as this petrol? They were desperate and saw this as an opportunity.

"The question as to who is to blame should be put to those who choose to run this pipeline through an area like this - and why fuel was allowed to flow from the broken pipe for so long."

These are tough questions that will need to be answered in the coming days.

But, for now, the scene here is a sombre one with relatives of the dead standing about in silence and collecting ashes - all that remains of their loved ones.

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