At least five migrants died in an attempt to cross the English Channel from an area near the French town of Wimereux on Tuesday, police said.

The French coast guard confirmed a police rescue operation had found several "lifeless bodies" following a failed attempt to cross the Channel.

A coast guard spokesperson said its agents were still operating at sea after what the official called a "busy" morning, with several crossing attempts.

The attempts took place after Britain's upper house of parliament passed legislation on Monday night that will allow the U.K. government to send asylum-seekers to Rwanda rather than stay in Britain for processing.

Stopping the flow of migrants is a priority for British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's government, which says the Rwanda plan will act as a deterrent. Human rights groups and other critics say it is inhumane.

La Voix du Nord newpaper said about 100 migrants had been rescued early on Tuesday, with three helicopters and several rescue boats taking part in the operation.

Tens of thousands of migrants - many fleeing wars and poverty in Africa, the Middle East and Asia - have reached Britain in recent years by crossing the Channel in small boats on risky journeys organised by people-smuggling gangs.

The Channel is one of the world's busiest shipping lanes and currents are strong, making the crossing on small boats dangerous.

The people smugglers typically overload the boats, leaving them barely afloat and at risk of being lashed by the waves as they try to reach British shores.

At least 34 people, including two babies were killed when a contraband fuel depot exploded into flames in southern Benin near the border with Nigeria on Saturday.

According to Beninese Interior Minister Alassane Seidou, “a serious fire occurred in the town of Seme Podji. Another 20 people were seriously wounded in the incident.”

"I can't really give you the cause of the fire, but there is a large gasoline warehouse here and cars, tricycles and motorcycles come from morning to evening,” he added.

Nigeria is a main oil and gas producer where fuel smuggling is very common along its borders, particularly when the government maintains a subsidy to keep fuel prices low.

The majority of the victims were burnt and they could not be not be identified.

It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using 'Content here, content here', making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for 'lorem ipsum' will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like).