Posted by By Osaro Okhomina on
IT was a sad Sallah holiday yesterday in Edo State after multiple auto-crashes along the Igbogiri and Uwe junction of the Benin-Agbor road claimed over 24 lives, including those of a woman and her three children.
BENIN CITY - IT was a sad Sallah holiday yesterday in Edo State after multiple auto-crashes along the Igbogiri and Uwe junction of the Benin-Agbor road claimed over 24 lives, including those of a woman and her three children. Many of the dead, according to the Edo State Command of the Federal Road Safety Corps headed by Sector Commander, Mr Samuel Obafemi, were travellers from the Ewhohimi Community in Esan South-East local government area of the state. They included 17 male, four women and three children.
The state Deputy Governor, Chief Mike Oghiadomhe, described the incident as shocking and prayed against a recurrence. He promised the readiness of the state government to support relevant agencies to avert such tragedy.
Vanguard gathered that the incident occurred around 11.30a.m. on Tuesday and bodies of the victims were deposited in various mortuaries in Abudu in Orhiowhon local government area and the Central (Specialist) Hospital in Benin City. It was gathered that only four persons survived the accident and are receiving treatment at the Abudu Central Hospital.
It was gathered that the unexpected burst of a tyre of a truck heading for Aba town triggered off the multiple accidents in which a Toyota Hiace bus and a Station Wagon vehicle coming from the other lane and heading for Benin City ran into the truck that veered into their lane. The 18-seater bus, conveying about 20 passengers, was reported to have had a head-on collision with the truck and the passengers died instantly.
The Hiace bus, with number plate BC 234 SMK, was said to have trapped its victims. The driver of the truck was reported to have survived but with his two legs broken.
Contacted on telephone yesterday, Sector Commander of the FRSC, Mr Obafemi, confirmed the incident, saying 'while the rescue operation was on, one of the passengers died, while many of the relatives besieged the scene of the incident wailing, trying to identify the bodies of their relations. After the initial investigation, we discovered that the accident was caused by the burst of a tyre from the truck. And in the last three weeks, the accidents recorded were mainly caused by tyre burst but one of them was caused by night driving."
Reacting yesterday on telephone from Auchi, the venue of the turbaning of some prominent indigenes of the state, the Deputy Governor, Chief Mike Oghiadomhe, described the news of the incident as shocking. 'We feel deeply shocked by the death of the 24 persons in the crash. And I express our condolence to the families of the victims. We also pray against such recurrence in the state and the nation. The state government will continue to support relevant agencies to avert the carnage on our roads and we must call on motorists to be more careful," he said.