Seven persons were crushed to death at the Upper Iweka axis in the
commercial city of Onitsha when a petrol tanker, a truck belonging to
Dangote Group and another carrying 40 feet container crashed in the
city.
Saturday Sun gathered that the first tanker lorry with registration
number, XG 613 AKR had failed brake opposite the Toronto hospital along
Onitsha-Asaba Expressway, crushing people especially motorists along the
ever busy Upper Iweka area.
However as the men of the Federal Road Safety Corps, FRSC were still
busy evacuating the bodies, a trailer lorry carrying a 40 feet container
with registration number XA353 GGU and another trailer carrying Dangote
Cement also had failed brakes and crushed other road users.
The first incident claimed the lives of two men and a woman who were
on their way home after the day’s job
while the second and third
incidents claimed the lives of a commercial motorcyclist and his
passengers whose bodies were mauled beyond recognition.
Narrating his experience, a survivor of the second accident in a
vehicle with registration number DL486ENU who pleaded anonymity said his
escape was miraculous since the trailers lost brakes and were busy
crushing their victims from the Toronto hospital to the foot of the
Upper Iweka fly-over.
“I was coming back from my office, am a lawyer, when I got to Upper
Iweka, I saw a terrible traffic gridlock, I was told that a tanker lorry
failed brake and crushed people at the area. I also noticed that
vehicles were parked along the road, suddenly as I was still at the
traffic gridlock, I heard frightening sound, before I could know what
was happening, two trailers carrying container and cement had lost
brakes and started crushing people”
He further stated “I could not jump out of my car because I was like a
person glued until I heard a great bang and I thought I was dead, it
was people that came and brought me out, but up till now, I can’t really
say what happened to me but everybody that saw me come out of the car
told me to thank my God”
Another eyewitness who gave his name as Dozie Okonkwo, a bus
conductor said that the only woman that died in the incident was a daily
money collector who had closed for the day and was on her way back to
her home at Old Road, Onitsha.
“She came to enter our bus, I told her that the price was N70, she
jumped out because she wanted a cheaper one, not quite long, the
incident happened, when we rushed there, she was already crushed, her
body was already crushed, it was only her cloth that some people used to
recognize her, her flesh was scattered all over the place”
However the first tanker lorry was said to be coming from a filling
station where it had dispensed its product in the commercial city of
Onitsha and was on its way to Port Harcourt when the driver allegedly
lost control of the vehicle, skidded off the road and crushed people.
The Onitsha Unit Commander of the Federal Road Safety Corps, FRSC,
Mr. Anthony Meta could not comment on the incident as he refused to pick
his calls. An officer who did not want his name in print confirmed the
incident and said he personally led his team to deposit the bodies of
the victims in the mortuary and took the injured persons to Toronto
Hospital for medical attention.
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