By Christopher Oji
THREE persons were roasted to death while several others received various degrees of fire burns when a petrol tanker exploded at Ibafo, Ogun State on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Tuesday night.
Witnesses said the tanker fell when the tyre was damaged by a pothole.
It was gathered that another truck was brought to transload the petroleum product.
A witness said: “While the owners of the tanker were transloading the product believed to be petrol, a commercial bus driver whose vehicle was smoking passed by and the tanker exploded, killing seven persons while many others were burnt.
“Those mostly affected were petrol black market dealers on the roadside. The incident happened Tuesday night and travellers were trapped in traffic gridlock that occurred till Wednesday morning”
The Assistant Corps Commander, Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Mowe Unit, Mr Dare Ogunjobi, said the command was yet to ascertain the casualty figure in the incident.
He said: “After clearing the traffic, we are going to visit some of the hospitals in the neighbourhood to ascertain the number and identities of victims and the death casualty. As at now we have not received any report on the casualties.”
A driver said: “We rushed some victims including Abdullahi Umar, Issa Yahaya, Sallah Muhammed and Adam to a private hospital in the community, the doctor was demanding for N100,000 each for treatment”