A petrol tanker, trailer and luxury bus crashed into each other on the Benin City-Ore Highway.
Over 60 people were reportedly burnt to death on Friday, April 5, 2013 in a road accident that occurred at about 1.30 pm local time in Ugbogui village, near Ofusu, the boundary town between Nigeria’s southern Edo and Ondo States. The highway links Nigeria's commercial capital, Lagos with eastern and southern states of the country.
An eye witness told Vanguard newspaper that the accident that took place on the Benin City-Ore Dual Carriageway, involved a trailer loaded with cement, a luxury bus and a petrol tanker loaded with fuel. The trailer developed a flat tyre, crashing into the tanker which in turn hit the luxury bus, causing it to burst into flames. Another eye witness said victims of the accident included drivers and conductors of both the trailer and the tanker, and 53 passengers from the fully-loaded bus.
An official of the Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed the incident, saying bodies of the victims had littered the scene. The accident closed the busy motorway for some time, forcing motorists to take feeder roads. Jonas Agwu, a spokesman for FRSC told the AFP news agency that the dead included 30 passengers from the bus, four people from the tanker and two children at a nearby garage. He said three people were however rescued. Al Jazeera TV quoted Agwu as saying the fire from the accident quickly spread to a nearby mechanic workshop where eight other vehicles and a local market also got burnt.
Last Friday’s accident came barely two days after 18 people were killed and nine others seriously injured when their bus veered off its lane and collided with another bus along a highway linking the capital, Abuja to the central city of Lokoja. Last July, more than 100 people died in the southern Rivers State after the crash of a fuel tanker. The vehicle did not immediately burst into flames, encouraging unsuspecting nearby villagers to rush to the scene to scoop fuel. But the tanker then exploded, burning many of them to death.
Nigeria is said to have one of the worst road accident records in Africa. Traffic accidents are common as roads are generally bad and safety standards poor. The country has recently sought to revive rail transport partly in a bid to relieve pressure on roads, but the service remains limited.
