Gas explosion kills over 80 in Ghana.

Over 80 people have died after an explosion sent flames coursing through a gas station in the center of Accra, the Ghanaian capital, officials said on Thursday.

The explosion occurred Wednesday night while the station was packed with residents seeking shelter from knee-high water caused by days of torrential rain that has flooded much of the city, officials said.

By Thursday morning, 108 bodies had been counted, Mayor Alfred Oko Vanderpuije of Accra said in a telephone interview from the capital.

“The area looked like a fire disaster zone. Everything has been burnt down,” said Mr. Vanderpuije, who added that he had visited the scene Thursday morning withGhana’s president, John Dramani Mahama. “All the vehicles in the filling station have been burned. We saw bodies there. It’s a major disaster.”

One witness said that a bus packed with passengers parked at the station had caught fire and all on board had died.

Francis Boateng, a Red Cross official in Accra, said the rain began three days ago and that water had flooded the gas station’s fuel storage. “The fire was on the water,” he said. “There are so many people who were consumed by the fire.”

Mr. Boateng put the death toll at around 90 and said the search for bodies was continuing in the high waters.

Ghanaian news media reported that the flooding had impeded rescue workers, and that ambulances had been late to arrive at the scene. Early Thursday morning, two vans packed with charred bodies left for the morgue, but a military hospital reported that the morgue was at capacity and could not take any more of the dead.