By CHUKS EKE
One person was confirmed dead, while five others were seriously injured yesterday when a gas tanker driver lost control of the vehicle as a result of sudden brake failure and rammed into on-coming vehicles.
The incident, according to eyewitnesses, occured when the tanker laden with cooking gas with Registration No. Lagos AKD 246 XW heading towards the direction of Obosi was descending a slope at Nkpor junction and the brake suddenly developed a fault.
According to the source, a long vehicle with a container body coming from Obosi direction had broken down at the scene since Friday last week and blocked one side of the narrow road linking Obosi and Nkpor.
It was furthered that as a result, all vehicles coming from Obosi direction had to queue behind the broken down long vehicle and wait for those heading to Obosi to pass before they could move.
The situation led to a temporary traffic jam within the scene and as other vehicles and tricycles queued up behind the broken down long vehicle waiting fir the tanker to to drive past, the tanker suddenly developed brake fault, forcing the driver to lose control as the vehicle rammed into the tricycles and other smaller vehicles, pushing all of them into a deep side drainage.
While the tanker was dragging the vehicles into the drainage, one of the tricycle passengers, a woman fell off and was crushed by another tricycle which ripped open her lower abdomen and she died 30 minutes after shouting for help, while other passengers, with various degrees of injuries were struggling to come out from the smashed vehicles inside the drainage. as at the time of filing this report .
Some of the witnesses who spoke to newsmen at the scene, said nobody rushed the dying woman to the hospital because her condition was so critical that they knew she would not survive as it would amount to unnecessary expenses to take her to the hospital.
Both policemen, fire service personnel and Federal Road Safety officials were seen battling to remove the carnage on the scene, including the broken down long vehicle and efforts to hear from the uniformed men proved abortive as they maintained sealed lips while struggling to clear the road.
