Thursday, June 9, 2011

21 feared dead in Ondo auto crash

NO fewer than 21 people, including two pregnant women and six children, died in a fatal auto crash accident on Akure-Ilesa Road on Wednesday.

The accident, which occurred at Ilara-Mokin, Ifedore Local Government Area of Ondo State at about 6.30 a.m involved a truck marked Lagos XU 606 JJJ and a commercial bus with registration number Lagos XV 315 FST.

Eyewitness said the two vehicles had head-on collision while the truck driver was attempting to avoid a deep pothole which made him veered off the road and face the on-coming commercial bus.

Twenty people died on the spot of the accident while 10 who sustained injury were taken to the hospital and one of them later died while receiving treatment at the State Specialist Hospital, Akure.

The driver of the truck was said to have escaped from the scene of the accident, while his conductor was arrested by men of the Nigeria Police, Igbara-Oke.

When the Nigerian Tribune got to the scene of the accident, men of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) had evacuated the dead and the injured to the hospital.

The state Sector Commander of the FRSC, John Mexeux, stated that the commercial bus was overloaded, going by the number of people in the bus.

He said the bus had 28 passengers instead of 15 at the time of the accident.

He, however, blamed the accident on impatience on the part of the drivers of the vehicles, saying that it would have been avoided if they were patients enough.

Sympathisers, however, thronged the emergency unit of the State Specialist Hospital, as the bodies of the deceased were brought to the hospital.

The bodies were piled up at an open space in front of the mortuary of the hospital, as the FRSC vehicle which conveyed the bodies had to return four times before all the victims could be evacuated.

One of the victims, who was treated, was said to have ran away from the hospital immediately after health workers completed his treatment.

Source : Nigerian Tribune

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