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.

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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”