A heart rending spectacle played out yesterday along the ever-busy Owerri-Aba federal highway as no fewer than 13 out of the 14 people in a commuter bus, perished in a ghastly road accident.
he unfortunate citizens lost their lives when the commercial vehicle they were travelling in had a head on collision with a Mack truck.
Traffic was held up along the road for hours, while sympathisers thronged the scene hoping to identify the victims, as men of Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC, and the police had hectic moments trying to get the traffic moving.
An eyewitness said the Mack truck was overtaking another truck at Agbala, which is about 20 minutes drive from Owerri, when the accident occurred.
Vanguard gathered that the commuter bus, belonging to the Young Shall Grow Motors, was heading to Lagos from Aba and had 14 passengers in it.
The eyewitness said: “Only one person out of the 14 persons in the bus survived the accident. The rest, including the driver, died on the spot as a result of the serious impact.”
Continuing, the eyewitnesses said that while the truck driver was attempting to overtake another truck, the bus driver was on top speed and could not safely manoeuvre his way out of a ditch allegedly dug by the contracting firm handling the dualisation of the road.
“The sad thing is that as soon as the crash occurred, the driver alighted from his vehicle and disappeared into the thin air,” the man recounted.
An indigene of Agbala, who simply identified himself as Mr. Ajoku, blamed the accident on the contracting firm, stressing that if the firm had not dug ditches on the sides of the road, the bus driver would have succeeded in meandering through the troubled spot.
Source vanguard
