A man rinses soot from his face at the scene of a gas pipeline explosion near Nigeria's commercial capital Lagos
REUTERS/Akintunde Akinleye

Akintunde Akinleye has won 1st prize in the Spot News category, at the 2007 World Press Photo contest with his spectacular picture of a man rinsing soot from his face at the scene of a gas pipeline explosion near Nigeria's commercial capital Lagos.

Akintunde puts the African team of Reuters photographers in top place on the winners podium for the second year in a row, after Finbarr O'Reilly won the Photo of the Year in 2006.  This year the Photo of the Year goes to Getty's Spencer Platt, after Reuters won it the two previous years.
 
Akintunde, 36, works in the Lagos Reuters bureau since 2005.  "As soon as he heard of the oil pipeline explosion, he rushed to the site to see hundreds of charred bodies being pulled from the flaming wreckage -- all that remained of a busy marketplace.  Amid the grisly scene of carbonized corpses, Akintunde managed to capture several striking images of grief and personal strain as rescue workers tried to cope with the carnage, providing withh that picture a rare glimpse of beauty amid the horror", tells us Finbarr O'Reilly.
 
The following Reuters photographers also received awards: 
Max Rossi, Reuters reknowed Vatican photographer, received the 1st prize Sports Action Singles for a beautiful picture of two gymnasts at the World Gymnastic Championships.  Yonathan Weitzman, Reuters Israeli photographer, received the 3rd prize in Spot News Stories for his series of pictures on the forced evacuation of Amona ourtpost in the West Bank.  Daniel Aguilar received the 3rd prize, General News Singles, for a striking picture of a man tied to a lampost in Oxaca in Mexico.  Reuters was also honoured with a 1st prize story for the Zinedine Zidane headbutt at the World Cup shot by a Dutch photographer Peter Schols who distributed the images through Reuters.
 
Read more about the awards and see the photos here of all the winners of the 2007 Word Press Photo contest.
 
 

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