LAGOS, Nigeria - A gasoline pipeline ruptured by thieves exploded into a blazing inferno Tuesday as scavengers collected the fuel in a poor neighborhood, killing at least 260 people in the latest oil-industry disaster to strike Africa's biggest petroleum producer. Braving a towering pillar of fire and a cloud of acrid black smoke, thousands of people in Lagos' Abule Egba neighborhood surged around rescue workers carrying away charred bodies, hoping to catch a glimpse of missing relatives.

“My brother, my brother,” wept 19-year-old Suboke Adebayo as an unidentified male corpse was loaded into an ambulance. Adebayo, a student, had spent hours trying unsuccessfully to contact her sibling: “I've been calling him since this morning, but I can only hear a holding tone.”

Residents said a gang of thieves had been illegally tapping the pipeline for months, carting away gasoline in tankers for resale.