It was a scene of horror — the fatal accident that occurred yesterday — as 18 passengers were roasted alive on the Benin-Ore dual-carriage expressway.
Among the dead were 15 adults, two children and a motor boy of a heavy-duty truck.
The accident caused travellers along the ever-busy Benin-Lagos road to spend several hours due to long traffic gridlock occasioned by the tragic accident.
The development came just as six people died in an auto accident in Ibadan, Oyo State, yesterday.
The Benin-Ore-Lagos road involved a heavy Mack truck loaded with gravel and a commercial Toyota bus belonging to Peace Mass Transit Limited.
It was learnt that the two vehicles had a collision along one of the lanes at Okada town in Ovia Northeast council area of Edo State.
The sector commander of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Edo State, Mr Kenneth Nwaegbe, confirmed the number of the dead in a telephone call yesterday.
He said that 18 of the passengers were roasted alive while two others who are children survived the accident and had been taken to the hospital for treatment.
The commercial bus was said to have left the commercial town of Onitsha, Anambra State, and was heading towards Lagos when the oncoming truck had a head-on collision with it on one side of the road under construction.
“It was not really head-on collision like that.,” Mr Nwaegbe said. “What happened was that the Mack truck was carrying gravel and was coming from Ore to Benin when it lost one of its tyres and control. And the Toyota bus was coming from Benin to Lagos when the two collided.”
He said the truck was among the vehicles on the one lane following construction work on the road when the accident occurred.
The sector commander added that the truck was heading from Ore to Benin when it had a burst tyre and lost control in the process and rammed into the bus carrying the passengers.
Meanwhile, the charred bodies of the dead were removed with the assistance of a team of rescue operation which consisted of men of the FRSC from the Tollgate unit command, policemen from Okada town police station and some sympathizers
Meanwhile, no fewer than six people yesterday lost their lives in an auto accident along the Lagos-Ibadan express road.
The accident, which involved a commercial Mazda bus marked OYO XE 675 LUY and a Mack truck marked LAGOS XX 455 GGE, near a private quarry company on Kilometre 114, Lagos-Ibadan expressway occurred at about 5:30pm.
An eyewitness said that the auto crash happened when the 14-passenger bus veered off the road and hit the truck where it was parked by the side of the road.
The six victims (four males and two females), were said to have died on the spot.
The assistant corps commander, FRSC, Oluyole Unit 1, Sanya Adeoye, who confirmed the incident, said, “The unit in conjunction with the rescue team of the state ambulance service and team of Operation Burst were around to rescue the victims.”
Adeoye added that the cause of the crash could not be immediately ascertained, saying that the remains of the victims had been deposited at the Adeoyo State Hospital morgue, Ring Road, Ibadan.
He said, “The bus veered off the road and hit the stationary truck by the side of the road. We could not ascertain the cause of the crash but we strongly suspect there was a mechanical deficiency that made the driver of the bus veer off the road.
“In all, 14 passengers were involved; six died – four male and two female. Their corpses have been deposited at the morgue. The injured victims are now receiving treatment at the University College Hospital, Ibadan. The sum of N64, 210 and five Euros were recovered at the scene of the crash. Immediately the crash was confirmed, the FRSC team of investigators moved to the scene to ascertain the remote and immediate causes.”