ABUJA, March 20 (Xinhua) -- Six people were killed and 25 others sustained varying degrees of injury following a multi-vehicle crash near Karu, a town on the outskirts of Abuja, the Nigerian capital, Wednesday night, police said Thursday.

Eighteen vehicles were involved, including a truck loaded with bags of cement that rammed into several vehicles in slow-moving traffic. A petrol tanker, which later exploded, was also impacted by the cement-laden truck, Olusegun Ogungbemide, a spokesman for the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Nigeria's traffic police, told the media.

A preliminary investigation by the traffic police attributed the incident to a brake failure, Ogungbemide said, noting some of the vehicles involved were engulfed in flames.

Witnesses said a gridlock followed the crash and fire late Wednesday, snarling traffic on the busy Abuja-Mararaba road for several hours.

Ogungbemide told Xinhua that traffic police personnel made frantic efforts to rescue victims and manage the situation in the area.

"The FRSC has also been collaborating with other security agencies to promote road safety awareness and prevent such tragic incidents from occurring," he said.

Deadly road accidents are frequently reported in Nigeria, often blamed on overloading, bad road conditions, and reckless driving.