NOT less than four persons were burnt beyond recognition yesterday
when a fuel-laden tanker burst into flames on the River Niger Bridge
after Itobe in Ajakuta Local Council of Kogi State.
It was gathered that the tanker driver and the conductor had tampered
with the fuel tanker at Itobe near Ajaokuta, where they might have sold
out some of the fuel and, in the process, they could not properly cover
the valve which started gushing fuel onto the bridge.
About 14 members of the Kogi State Correspondent chapel of the
Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) who were returning from a party
campaign rally in Olamaboro Local Council escaped the fireball by
whiskers.
The correspondents of Leadership and Vanguard newspapers, Mr. Sam
Egwu and Bolu Obahopo, however, sustained various degrees of injury when
they jumped out from the moving vehicle that
conveyed them.
The Guardian gathered that the driver of the 33,000 litres capacity
tanker made frantic efforts to stem the outpouring of fuel from the side
valves of the tanker, before the sudden fire outburst that consumed
them.
A motorcyclist, who was attempting to overtake the Toyota Haice bus
of the Correspondents Chapel slipped over the fuel, fell down and the
scratch of the silencer on the bridge ignited the fire which consumed
the fuel tanker as well as the driver of the tanker.
The Toyota Haice bus, which had passed immediately after, caught fire
from the underside, during which a stampede ensued inside the bus.
Others who later alighted were able to put out the fire with the fire
extinguisher, while those injured were taken to the nearby Crestwood
Hospital, Ajaokuta, for treatment.
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