FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) — Scores of people were feared dead near Sierra Leone’s capital after an oil tanker exploded at a gas station while large crowds had gathered to collect leaking fuel, officials and witnesses said.

The explosion took place early Saturday after a bus struck the tanker in Wellington, a suburb just to the east of Freetown.

President Julius Maada Bio, who was in Scotland attending the United Nations climate talks Saturday, deplored the “horrendous loss of life."

“My profound sympathies with families who have lost loved ones and those who have been maimed as a result,” he tweeted.