13 feared dead in Lagos multiple accident

About 12 people, including a
pregnant woman and two children,
were, on Tuesday morning, feared
crushed to death by a truck in
Oshodi area of Lagos State. There were, however, conflicting
figures on the number of people,
as eyewitnesses at the scene gave
between 10 and 20 as the number
of people who died in the accident,
while the police insisted that only 6 people died . The victims included occupants of
three commercial buses picking
passengers at Ise Oluwa Junction
in Oshodi, involving pedestrians
and commuters who were waiting
to board vehicles. Five vehicles were also smashed by
the truck, whose driver reportedly
lost control and rammed it into a
crowd at the bus stop. The incident, which happened
around 11.00 a.m. on Tuesday, not
only created a serious traffic
gridlock on the Apapa-Oshodi
Expressway, but also caused
emotional breakdown from people who gathered at the scene. The truck, with the registration
number JJJ 824 XD, caused
commotion as the unborn baby of
the pregnant woman gushed out of
the mother’s womb. The Nigerian Tribune gathered that
the truck completely mangled one
of the commercial vehicles and
smashed people against the
concrete septic tank by the side of
the road. A vulcaniser at Ise Oluwa Junction,
the scene of the incident, who
declined to be named, said that the
vehicle was coming from Gbagada
Expressway and was descending
the slope between the road and Apapa-Oshodi Expressway when the
driver lost control of the
vehicle.The vulcanizer said that the
driver swerved from the
expressway to the reverse lane and
crashed into a large crowd of people at the bus stop and
commercial vehicles parked by the
roadside. An elderly man, who also pleaded
anonymity, gave the number of
casualty as seven and added that
scores of others were injured. A transport unionist at the
junction, however, claimed that no
fewer than 17 people were killed in
the accident, as “the vehicle
caught many people unawares.” The vulcanizer said that “all the
people in an LT bus were killed,
while some people in three other
buses also died as the truck
crushed the vehicles. In another development, an
unidentified young woman was
yesterday crushed to death by a
trailer right under the pedestrian
bridge at the toll gate bus top in
Lagos. The accident, which happened
around 9.00 am, caused a major
gridlock as men of the Federal
Road Safety Corps (FRSC) tried to
divert traffic, while also making
arrangements to clear the corpse. According to an eyewitness who
simply gave her name as Uche, the
tragic incident occurred as the
young lady tried to cross the
expressway.