The Democratic Republic of Congo president has declared a 48-hour national mourning, two days after a wrecked fuel truck exploded on a rural highway killing at least 230 people.

Red Cross workers have been spraying chlorine and pouring disinfectant powder over the blackened scene of the explosion in Sange.

Elsewhere, dozens of badly burned survivors recovered in hospitals and clinics across eastern Congo.

Troubles began when the tanker hauling fuel from the provincial capital, Bukavu, overturned as it tried to pass a minibus in the small village near the Burundi border.

Laying on its side, the wrecked vehicle began gushing petrol beside three flimsy television halls made of brick and wood, where hundreds of people had gathered to watch the World Cup. Crowds gathered around the wreck, and dozens of people began trying to collect the leaking petrol with jerry-cans and plastic buckets, ignoring pleas from United Nations peacekeepers to move away because of the danger.

Within an hour, a fire began - nobody is sure exactly how - and a massive explosion suddenly engulfed the three TV halls and a nearby market.

Most of the dead were buried in two mass graves a few miles from Sange.