While hundreds of youths donated blood and offered various kinds of assistance to the injured victims of Thursday’s fuel truck tragedy on Khurais Road in east Riyadh, hundreds of others took advantage of the chaos to loot cars of onlookers and businesses in nearby areas, Al-Riyadh daily reported.

The looting scenes appeared on YouTube as well.

An informed source of the Riyadh police, however, denied the looting reports, Al-Hayat daily reported yesterday. “No police station close to the location of the accident on Khurais Road received any complaint of looting in commercial establishments following the accident. Any contrary reports appearing on social networking sites are incorrect,” the police source said.

Police stations in the districts of Nazeem, Naseem and Roudah are not far from the location.

The official was prompted to deny the reports following some people claiming on social networks, including Twitter, that 62 people were caught red-handed and arrested while looting shops close to the accident site.

The source explained that some people might have mistaken the photos of onlookers around the wide accident site posted on some websites as looters.

He added that it is quite natural that a crowd would gather around the site because it is close to a densely populated residential area.

He said a sufficient number of police force was deployed at the site and onlookers were warned to stay away from the scene. Some nearby roads were also closed to traffic, the daily reported.

However, many youths were taking precautionary steps against likely looting. They guarded a showroom of generator sets close to the accident site, which had all its glass windows broken by the impact of the explosion.

“We found the vulnerable showroom as a likely target for looters. We discovered the cash box and account books, and other valuable documents and put them in safe custody until the owners came,” Hussain Al-Ajami, one of the youths who volunteered to guard the showroom said.

Other youths including expatriates were found distributing drinking water and others directing the chaotic traffic.

The director general of the showroom said the youths were waiting for officials to go to the showroom and take stock of the situation inside it, the daily reported.

Meanwhile, videos were posted online showing about 200 men scouring the wreckage of a commercial building that appeared to belong to a large construction vehicle company. Men scrambled atop the wreckage, pulling a a large quantity of reflective safety vests and putting them on.

One individual described the scene on audio. He described how strangers found mobile phones and cash. One man plucked what appeared to be a camera from the debris and carried it off.