From Geoffrey Anyanwu, Enugu
Three persons, including a girl under the age of 10 were, on Wednesday evening, crushed to death by a tanker loaded with kerosene which lost control at the popular 9th Mile Corner, Udi, Enugu State.
The incident, which happened at about 7pm, also had four others sustaining varying degrees of injuries and destroyed many vehicles, shops and property, including goods in people’s shops worth millions of naira.
The long Mack tanker with inscription, Bemac Investment, was, according to eyewitness, coming from the Nsude axis of the old Nsukka road when it lost control on top of the bridge and ram into the building housing the shops at No. 74 and 75 Old Nsukka Road.
But before crashing into the shops, the heavy-duty vehicle had crushed an Okada rider and the girl child, who was passing the road with the mother, while the third casualty, a young lady, was only found later in the night inside the gutter at the scene of the accident.
The affected building had in it a restaurant, patent medicine shop, building materials/household items shop and the Neighbourhood Security office.
Confirming the incident, yesterday, the Enugu State Sector Commander of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Joseph Udoabba, told Daily Sun that seven persons were involved and, out of that, three died.
He said: “We were told that seven persons were involved; three persons lost their lives, a man, a woman and a girl. All of them were taken to the hospital and then we tried as much as possible all through the night to make sure there was no traffic jam there.”
When Daily Sun visited the scene of the accident yesterday morning, the shop owners were seen drying their goods that were not totally destroyed by the product of the tanker which emptied into their shops and the surroundings, and also counting their losses.