Another gas explosion in Bille, CAPPA calls for immediate govt action
Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA) has alerted the Federal and Rivers State governments to another explosion from gas leakage in Bille, an island community in Degema Local Government Area (LGA) of Rivers State, warning that urgent action is required to prevent further explosions and mass casualties.
The blast occurred just two weeks after CAPPA presented its documentary and report, Danger! Bille Is Highly Flammable, which called for urgent government intervention over worsening gas bubbling and seepage across the community. During a visit on July 6, CAPPA documented emissions from wells, boreholes, residential compounds, waterways and school grounds, and warned that continued inaction could lead to a major disaster.
In a statement on Saturday, CAPPA said the latest explosion occurred at about 8 a.m. on Thursday, September 3, 2026, at No. 18, Opu Ibiila Community, Bille. The blast set part of the house ablaze, blew out its windows and severely burned the occupant, Joy Amos.
Video footage obtained by CAPPA shows Ms Amos in serious pain after sustaining extensive burns. CAPPA said she required urgent specialist care and called on the Rivers State Government to ensure that she received immediate treatment, and that all related medical and rehabilitation costs were covered.
Amos, an Ogoni native, said she often heard bubbling sounds from under the floor of her apartment at night. She explained that Thursday’s explosion shattered her windows from inside the room.
“I was in my room on the bed, using my phone, when I heard ‘poof!’ My windows shattered, and fire surrounded me. I grabbed my phone and power bank—the only things I remembered to take—and ran out of the room naked. I dropped them in front of my bathroom, ran outside and began to call for help,” Amos said.
The Vice President of the Bille Kingdom Youth Federation, Timothy Agunbiade, who arrived a few minutes later, corroborated her account. He said her phone, power bank and gas cylinder were unaffected and that the force of the explosion appeared to have travelled from inside the room outwards.
“I asked her what the cause could be. She said she had been hearing bubbling sounds in her room at night whenever she lay down and everywhere else was quiet. She had complained to one or two people but had not informed her landlady,” Agunbiade said.
“She rented the house and is not from Bille. She is an Ogoni woman, and we have not been able to reach any of her relatives. From our observation, the blast happened from inside out.”
Agunbiade added that the floor of Amos’s room had been generating heat before the explosion and appeared to be under pressure from beneath.
CAPPA said the incident confirmed that Bille was facing an escalating emergency that could no longer be met with official visits, sample collection and silence.
“Bille exposes the inhuman bargain at the heart of reckless extraction in the Niger Delta. Wealth is taken from communities and transferred to corporations and the state, while residents are left with polluted water, damaged livelihoods, illness and danger. Companies continue to earn from extraction, yet the people living closest to oil and gas infrastructure are expected to bear its gravest risks,” said Zikora Ibeh, CAPPA’s Assistant Executive Director.
“No industry should be permitted to transfer the human and environmental costs of its operations onto communities. Whatever the investigation ultimately establishes as the source of these emissions, the failure to protect Bille after months of warnings is indefensible.”
As an immediate precaution, the group demanded the suspension of all oil and gas activities in and around Bille until the cause of the bubbling and seepage is established and independent experts confirm that the community is safe.
It said the explosion showed that the danger could no longer be treated as confined to isolated locations. Emergency measures must cover the entire community, including the deployment of emergency-response teams, the evacuation of residents to safe temporary accommodation, continuous monitoring of air and water quality, and clear public guidance on the risks and necessary precautions.
CAPPA called on the Rivers State Government, NOSDRA, NUPRC, NMDPRA, the Federal Ministry of Environment, the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources and other relevant authorities, working within their respective mandates and with independent experts, to launch a transparent and coordinated investigation into the crisis. It said the exercise should identify the source of the emissions and assess all active, ageing, idle and abandoned oil and gas infrastructure in and around Bille, including wells, wellheads, pipelines and production facilities.
The organisation urged the authorities to resolve, isolate or decommission any unsafe infrastructure without delay. It also asked them to publish all test results and investigative findings, explain the risks to residents and provide a clear timetable for ending the emissions and making the community safe.
CAPPA further called on the government to treat the situation as a public-health emergency. It demanded multidisciplinary medical teams specialising in respiratory illness, toxic exposure and burn care; round-the-clock emergency clinics; ambulance and hospital referral services; and free diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation.
The group also demanded safe water, compensation, and livelihood support for households whose lives, fishing, and other sources of income had been disrupted.
“The authorities were warned. A woman has now been severely burned, while the people of Bille remain exposed to potentially dangerous gases. Government must move residents out of harm’s way, provide urgent medical care, identify and stop the source of the emissions, and account publicly for its response,” Ibeh said.
“The wealth extracted from the Niger Delta cannot continue to enrich corporations and public coffers while host communities are left to breathe contaminated air, drink unsafe water and fear explosions in their homes. The people of Bille have carried this burden long enough. Government cannot wait for deaths before acting.”
