President Abdul Salami Abubakar expressed his condolences to the families of the victims and said the government would do everything it could to solve the problems that led to ``this human tragedy''.

He said attacks on facilities of the oil industry in southern Nigeria must stop.

News reports said the government did not have enough money in its coffers to pay compensation to the survivors of the victims. A spokeswoman for the government-owned PPMC oil company said it remained unclear if the disaster was the result of an attack by anti-government groups.

Meanwhile, a nauseating stench of death and scenes of carnage today surrounded the burning epicentre of the oil fire. From miles away, a thick column of choking black smoke was still rising high into the morning sky. The sceneof the disaster lay up a narrow muddy track in a woodland area a few miles off the main benin to Warri road, just south of Sapele.

Approaching the area, the heat was intense and a powerful and penetrating smell of burnt flesh hung like a foul blanket in the air. Closer to the scene of the inferno, charred bodies lay scattered on the ground where they fell on Saturday, lying in rings around the site.

The first of several mass graves dug yesterday was filled by the evening and a second was starting to fill up. Bodies, dozens of them, lay in a mangled heap, their flesh burnt to a cinder.

Workers, hired by the local council, were still carrying bodies down the main track away from the pipeline building in wheelbarrows, covered in white sheets.