| Ball of fire
•Kara market engulfed, traders lament
By Chris Anucha
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
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Lagos Ibadan Express road after the fire incident
• PHOTO: Sun News Publishing
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Kara market at Isheri near Lagos on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway
recently went up in a ball of fire. An oil tanker had crashed
on the bridge beside the market and exploded. In its trail
were cries of anguish, sorrow and pain.
The head of the tanker, which was coming from Lagos and heading
towards Ibadan, had suddenly pulled off and plunged into Ogun
river, killing the three occupants. Immediately, the tanker’s
main body fell on the road and spilled its contents, which
caught fire. Eyewitnesses said fuel later poured on kiosks,
shanties and sheds erected under the bridge and they also
went up in flames.
The petty traders and cattle dealers, who, obviously were
caught unawares, said they did not have the opportunity of
removing even a pin as they watched helplessly the inferno
consuming their means of livelihood and what served as their
shelters.
Some of them, who spoke with Daily Sun, said
the casualty figure would have been higher if they had tried
to salvage their wares and personal effects.
“We didn’t know what led to the accident, but
when we saw the fire spreading very fast, the next thing we
did was to run for our lives,” a man who gave his name
as Alhaji Aminu Ileife told Daily Sun.
He said that it would have been foolish for anyone who heard
the sound of the explosion to start looking for property to
salvage.
“We just heard the blast of a heavy object that fell
into the river, the explosion and then, the flame. When we
looked up, we only saw one tanker. It was not as a result
of collision or crash with another car,” he said.
The disappointing aspect, though, was that nobody tried to
rescue the driver and the other two persons who were trapped
in the head of the tanker insde the river.
Some local divers who were said to have showed up earlier
had assumed that the driver and other occupants of the tanker
were already dead, arguing that it was only a crane that could
lift the detached head of the tanker out of the river.
Rescue operation was close to nil as people stood aloof, watching
the raging inferno. Some fire service men from the Lagos State
and members of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps
from Ogun State arrived the scene but not before the damage
had been done.
A member of the NSCDC, who preferred anonymity, told Daily
Sun that they were at the scene to see how they could
be of help but ruled out helping to pull out the detached
head of the tanker from the river.
“We are not divers and we don’t have the kind
of equipment that could be used to pull out the head of the
tanker from the river. It is unfortunate, we are helpless
here,” he said.
However, people have expressed worry over the burnt bridge.
They complained that the inferno had affected and weakened
the structure.
“We are appealing to the Federal Government to do something
urgently about the bridge because of the strategic and economic
importance of the Lagos –Ibadan expressway,” one
of them, who identified himself as Demola Obasa, said.
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