Brazilian tanker explosion kills 53

The crash took place just before 3 a.m. on the Anhanguera Highway near Araras, 110 miles northwest of Sao Paulo.

''The tanker truck lost control and flipped,'' Araras fire official Wilson Lima said. He said a liquor truck rammed it from behind, and fuel the tanker was carrying spilled onto the highway.

The buses were in the pool of liquid when it burst into flames, Lima said. The tanker was carrying thousands of gallons of fuel.

''It was horrible. People were screaming, their bodies on fire, and trying desperately to escape through the windows,'' Priscila Cordeiro, one of the survivors told TV Globo network. ''None of us could do anything to help. We would have died if we tried.''

Joao Mesquita managed to save himself and his 2-year-old son, but his wife died in the flames.

''It all happened very quickly,'' he said. ''The fire destroyed everything within minutes.''

Earlier in the day, the Araras fire department placed the death toll at 57, but revised the count after receiving a report from the city morgue.

Images filmed by an amateur cameraman and aired by TV Globo showed the vehicles completely engulfed by flames.

Firefighters quoted by the network said pieces of aluminum from the buses had welded together.

The four vehicles were reduced to twisted and charred metal, and a long stretch of the highway's median strip was blackened. A row of coffins was placed on the road.

Lima said 39 people were hospitalized, but most were released.

The buses were heading to Anapolis with pilgrims returning from Aparecida do Norte, a town 110 miles northeast of Sao Paulo that houses the basilica of Our Lady Revealed, Brazil's patron saint.

09-09-98