Olumide Akanji
About 16 people may have been burnt to death, while three other victims who sustained a first degree burn were rescued alive to the hospital in a fatal accident which occurred along Lagos-Ibadan expressway in the Obafemi-Owode local government area of Ogun State on Thursday night.
The crash, which occurred around 8.30pm on the long bridge end of the expressway, inbound Lagos, involved a stationary Toyota RAV-4 marked LND 13 GS, a Toyota Camry with registration number GGE 369 GJ and an 18-seater commercial Mazda bus whose registration number could not be identified due to the degree of the burn.
The public relations officer (PRO) of the Ogun State Traffic Compliance and Enforcement Agency (TRACE), Babatunde Akinbiyi, who confirmed the incident to journalists in Abeokuta, the state capital, attributed the cause of the accident to wrongful overtaking on the part of the driver of the Mazda bus.
Though it could not be ascertained whether the Mazda bus was loaded to full capacity, Akinbiyi, however, explained that the commercial bus rammed into the RAV-4 car that was stationary “in the middle of the expressway” having developed fault while on transit.
“In the process, the driver lost control and the commercial Mazda bus summersaulted severally before it burst into flames. It couldn’t be ascertained if the Mazda bus was fully loaded, but carcass of human bodies burnt beyond recognition was noticed at the accident scene,” he said.
The TRACE PRO further explained that it took the combined efforts of the operatives of his agency, the police as well as that of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) to rescue three victims alive of which two were taken to Lagos State Accident and Emergency Centre, with the third victim also taken to the General Hospital, Gbagada for treatment.
No comments:
Post a Comment