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GOMA - A petrol station explosion set off by hot lava killed looters in Congo's volcano-stricken Goma town on Monday and a witness said up to 60 people may have died.

The blast added greater tragedy to Goma's inferno-like landscape which was dotted with residents hunting food in an eerie scene of lava solidified over moving rivers of molten rock.

One witness said 50 to 60 people may have died in the blast. There was no immediate confirmation and reporters who peered into the blazing wreckage from 30 metres (100 feet) away said it was impossible to gauge the extent of casualties.

"There were about 50 to 60 people inside," said Kahokolo Kambale, 30, who saw what happened. "Nobody could have escaped."

Kambale said men and women had been pouring fuel from large drums into smaller containers when some spilled liquid appeared to trickle onto hot lava, setting the garage ablaze.

"People were screaming and running all over the place," Reuters photographer George Mulala said. "It's obvious that people must have been killed. I don't know how many."

Further blasts were still sending flames and fuel drums 50 metres into the air several hours after the first explosion.

Fidele Mitsindo, governor of the nearby Rwandan town of Gisenyi, was at the petrol station shortly after it exploded.

"They are people who were looting. You have to walk over lava to get to the building. People went inside and took barrels," he said. "As they were leaving, one barrel fell onto the rock. It exploded."

The accident heightened perceptions among aid workers that Goma was a dangerous and volatile place for emergency operations in the wake of Mount Nyiragongo's eruption last Thursday.

Treacherous undercurrents of white-hot lava still flowed in places where the encrusted surface wafer of solidified slurry collapsed to reveal the moving magma.

However experts said the lava rivers now appeared to be powered merely by gravity after the original eruption tapered off at some point during the weekend.

Goma has been in ruins since the 3,469-metre (11,380 foot) high mountain began erupting sending lava through the town on the shores of Lake Kivu on the border with Rwanda.

The eruption itself has killed about 45 people, according to U.N. estimates. The U.S. Agency for International Development said that as of Friday it had confirmed reports of 25 deaths.

The United Nations said it was extremely concerned that the volcano could erupt again. Violent tremors shook the region again on Monday, driving many residents to leave shelter for fear of being crushed by collapsing structures.

Congolese made homeless by the disaster awoke on Monday to hunt for essentials, with some complaining of headaches and diarrhoea from contaminated water.

Women collecting water from a standpipe on the edge of the town said they were worried that the lava still steaming at the edge of Lake Kivu may have contaminated supplies but they had no choice but to drink it.

"We're afraid but there is nothing else to do. We have no choice," said Lucie Kabuo, 21, carrying a jerrycan down one of Goma's main streets.

"The taste is very different. It's dirty. There's dust in the water from the magma falling into the lake," said Andre Mashukano, 55, who was living with 13 children in the grounds of a hotel.

"The taste is very bitter, but we have to drink it."

In parts of the town, hardened survivors inured to years of civil war and anarchy, managed to restore a semblance of normality -- small makeshift street stalls sold cassava, manioc and pots of sugar while residents lugged jerrycans of water.

Women cooked pots of porridge over open fires in whatever shelter they could find.

Ignoring the risk of further eruptions, tens of thousands of people streamed back into Goma on Sunday, picking their way across swathes of still steaming lava to see what remained of their homes since the molten tide swept down on Thursday.

Aid agencies said the unexpected mass return to Goma had turned plans for food and water distribution on their head. They had planned to run big camps inside Rwanda, away from the lava.

"It seems that nearly all the displaced people have returned to Goma," Alison Preston of the World Vision agency said.

"That has produced a whole new crisis because we have half a million people returning to only a fraction of what Goma used to be. There is massive overcrowding, the streets were just thick with people."

But Goma's residents who braved violent earth tremors and carried everything from babies to bicycles back to streets flooded with crusted lava on Sunday, said they would rather be weak and hungry at home than in Rwanda.

"We didn't feel welcome in Rwanda, we spent two days without food, without water, they refused to change our money," said Chabani Shani, 42, who was lucky to find his home still standing.

Aid workers said several hours of rain on Sunday evening had further complicated Goma's predicament, turning mounds of dried lava into a grey slurry which emanated steam heavy with sulphur. Many people were sleeping outdoors.

The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo in Kinshasa said it would send a delegation of ministers and aid worth $1.5 million, in the first such visit to rebel-held Goma since civil war divided the former Zaire in 1998.