18 passengers burnt to death as commercial bus catches fire on Ijebu-Ode/Ore expressway
No fewer than 18 passengers have burnt to death after a commercial bus caught fire in the Ogbere area of Ijebu East local government, along the Ijebuode/ Ore expressway.
One other passenger sustained injured in the that accident involved a Toyota Hiace, with registration number XA 690AKU.
The public relations officer of the Ogun State Traffic Compliance and Enforcement Agency, Babatunde Akinbiyi confirmed this in a statement in Abeokuta, the state capital.
The accident, which occurred due to an inferno from Petroleum Motor Spirit (PMS) stored in a jerry can inside the vehicle, was classified as a lone accident.
“According to eyewitness accounts and this was corroborated by the driver, there was a keg full of Petroleum Motor Spirit inside the bus.
It fell on its side when the vehicle got to a failed portion of the road.
“The PMS poured on the floor of the bus and later dropped on the exhaust pipe and caused the vehicle to catch fire in transit,” Akinbiyi explained.
He added that the driver, who was partially burnt, was rescued and taken to Rona Hospital in Ijebu Ode, while the deceased were deposited at the State Hospital Mortuary, Ijebu Ode.
While warning drivers against storing fuel in jerry cans, Akinbiyi expressed condolences to the families of the deceased.
In a related development, the death toll in a road accident that occurred in Saminaka, in the Lere Local Government Area of Kaduna State has risen to 40.
The accident, which occurred around 1 pm on Sunday, involved mostly children, who were travelling to celebrate Eld El Maulud, a Muslim festival to mark the birth of Prophet Muhammad.
The bus they were travelling in lost control and colluded with an articulated vehicle due to overspeeding and overloading.
The Sector Commander of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Kabiru Nadabo, had earlier told Channels Television that 25 people died due to complications from the accident, while 48 others sustained varying degrees of injuries and were rushed to various hospitals in Kaduna, Jos and Kano for urgent medical attention.
However, the number of deaths rose to 40 on Tuesday as more victims of the accident died in the hospital where they were being treated.
Following the unfortunate incident, Governor Uba Sani directed the state commissioner of health to ensure that the remaining surviving children who sustained injuries from the road accident were given adequate medical attention.
The governor in a statement expressed his pain by the tragedy and said he would reach out to the families of the deceased to offer some assistance.
Meanwhile, the remains of the victims have been buried in the Lere Local Government Area, according to Islamic burial tradition.
