At least 12 persons have been confirmed dead and 19 others injured, following an explosion that rocked Nyanya, a satellite town located on the outskirts of Abuja, the nation’s capital.

Spokesman for the Nigerian Police, Frank Mba, gave the figures Thursday night at the scene of the incident, adding that those injured were receiving treatment at the various hospitals in the city.

Mba however, described the casualty figure as “provisional”, saying investigation into the explosion had already commenced.

The casualty figure given by the Police is however a far cry from the estimates of people at the park who said scores might have died but far less than the figure from the last explosion where over 200 are believed to have been killed.

The explosion reportedly went off around 8pm. Perhaps the timing of the attack and the fact that the day was declared a public holiday to mark the Workers’ Day, were factors that contributed to making the casualty figure less than the previous as many remained indoors.

Meanwhile, authorities of the National Hospital are having a hard time coping with the new explosion patients as the hospital’s facilities have been over stretched.

Spokesman for the hospital, Tayo Haastrup, said it was difficult to cope with the number of new patients since it still has some victims of the last explosion admitted.

Haastrup said as a result, some victims of the Thursday blast would be moved to Federal Staff Hospital.

The area of the explosion has been cordoned by security officials and the authorities have asked the public to cooperate with security agencies and as much as possible keep off the area of the explosion, so as not to hamper the investigation work being carried out.

Some top security officials visited the blast scene last night including the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar, the Commander-General of Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, Olu Abolurin, the Commander, Guards Brigade and the FCT director of the State Security Service, SSS.

Witnesses said that the incident occurred from a Volkswagen golf car which drove from the Keffi end of the road and exploded just about 50 metres away from the scene of the April 14 blast.