Posted by By Olalekan Adetayo on
Three persons, including a 15-year-old boy, were feared dead on Monday when a Volkswagen commercial bus.....
Three persons, including a 15-year-old boy, were feared dead on Monday when a Volkswagen commercial bus somersaulted on the Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos.
Although police authorities only confirmed the three casualties, the fate of the remaining persons in the 14-passenger bus was not clear as some eyewitnesses claimed that they were flung into the lagoon.
While the corpses of the other two victims, a man and a woman, were recovered inside the bus on the road, the remains of the teenager were reportedly recovered from the lagoon by a combined team of marine policemen and local fishermen.
Police source said the boy, a student of a private secondary school at Oworonshoki, was identified by some of his teachers shortly after the accident.
Their corpses have since been deposited at the mortuary of the General Hospital, Gbagada.
As at 1.05pm when the local divers left the scene, no other corpse was recovered from the scene, which was besieged by anxious Lagosians plying the route.
Our correspondent learnt that the Oworonshoki-bound bus, marked XP 492 LND, was coming from Oyingbo and was approaching Iyana-Oworo bus stop on the bridge when the accident occurred.
Personal effects such as footwears and clothings as well as wares such as fishes and baskets still littered the road when our correspondent visited the scene. There were also splashes of blood at the spot.
Officials of the Nigerian Red Cross Society, led by Mr. Ige Oladimeji, were also at the scene to assist the local divers in the rescue mission.
The Police Public Relations Officer, Lagos State Command, Mr. Olubode Ojajuni, a deputy superintendent of police, told our correspondent that the vehicle had been towed to Oworonshoki police station.
He said it was too early to ascertain the cause of the accident. Ojajuni added, 'The only report we have now is that the vehicle somersaulted, but the railings prevented it from plunging into the river."