Nairobi , Kenya ( CNN ) -- Work to recover bodies from the scene of a pipeline explosion in a densely populated Nairobi slum has ended , Kenya Red Cross said Tuesday . Red Cross officials said 82 bodies had been recovered . Police pegged the number at 76 . There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy . The blast Monday morning flattened homes , reduced some bodies to dust and forced a massive evacuation of the Sinai slum amid fears that big pools of leaked fuel could ignite , police and Kenya Red Cross officials said . The fire erupted around 10 a.m. local time , possibly as a group of people were siphoning fuel from the pipeline , which runs through the Lunga Lunga industrial area , officials said . Coming to a precise accounting of the toll may be difficult because so many of the victims were found huddled together and severely burned , Carol Nduta , a Kenya Red Cross emergency medical instructor and dispatcher who traveled to the scene , said Monday . Some of the bodies were burned to dust , she said . In addition to the dead , 118 people were hospitalized , police said . The precise cause of the incident is under investigation . Kenya Pipeline Co. , the state-owned petroleum company that owns the pipeline , said in a statement Monday night that it had detected a spill from a bypass line in the Sinai community on Monday morning and immediately moved to shut it down . State-owned Kenya Broadcasting Corporation quoted Prime Minister Raila Odinga as saying the incident occurred after a mechanism on the pipeline failed , allowing fuel to spill into a drainage ditch , where it then ignited . Police , however , said the incident may have occurred after someone punctured the pipeline in an effort to steal fuel . Fatalities from fuel leak accidents are common in Kenya . Scores of residents scramble to scoop up fuel whenever there is a leak or a tanker is involved in an accident . In 2009 , more than 100 people died in a fire after an oil tanker overturned in Molo , in western Kenya . In that incident , someone trying to take some of the fuel lit a cigarette , starting the fire . A 2009 article in a Kenyan newspaper , The Daily Nation , discussed concerns of such a fire in the Sinai slum , where residents built shanties and even a church next to or even on top of the pipeline , according to the Daily Nation . `` I do n't think there will ever be a fire , but you never know , '' the newspaper quoted one resident who it said had refused to move away from the pipeline despite eviction notices from the pipeline 's owner . CNN 's Divina Mims , Andreena Narayan , Faith Karimi , Lillian Leposo , Helena DeMoura and Kim Chakanetsa contributed to this report .
NEW : Recovery work ends after the pipeline explosion . Kenya : Red Cross says 82 bodies have been recovered . NEW : Police pegged the number at 82 . An investigation into the explosion 's cause is under way .