Fourteen persons at the weekend died in a ghastly road accident at Amasiri Secondary School junction of the Afikpo-Okigwe federal roadin Ebonyi state.
The accident which occurred around midnight involved an articulated vehicle and a 14-seater bus conveying members of the Assemblies of God’s Church, Isu in Ohaoazara Local Government Area from a burial.
Mr Roland Ogbuke, Afikpo Unit Commander of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) confirmed the incident to our reporter.
He said: “We received a distress call early morning of the accident, and I mobilized my rescue officers immediately to the scene of the carnage.
“Sources informed us that the articulated vehicle-driver was trying to dodge a heap of sand on the road but hit the oncoming bus which was on a convoy of vehicles.
“The articulated vehicle then pushed the bus to a tree some metres away from the road and crushed it on the tree, decapitating the bus in the process and mangling the passengers’ bodies.
“We have to mobilise a nearby quarry company which used its heavy duty machine to cut the tree and decapitated parts of the bus, in order to evacuate the mangled bodies of the passengers,” he said.
Ogbuke remarked that the crushed passengers were mostly women, as their relatives and church- members who were inside other vehicles, cooperated with his officers in the evacuation process.
“The police in particular, assisted the FRSC in evacuating the bodies to the Mater Misericordae hospital Afikpo because our vehicle developed a serious fault on the way.
“We are thereby urging citizens of the state whose relatives failed to return from a journey on Saturday, to visit the hospital to identify corpses of the relatives,” he said.
He noted that the FRSC with the aid of other security agencies and the quarry company, conducted a ‘mop-up’ of the accident scene to ensure free flow of traffic along the road.
“We urge the public to imbibe road safety practices by shunning night journeys, over speeding among other practices that negate road safety regulations,” he said.
Mrs Regina Ukpa, a resident of the area said that the incident has instilled fear inside the people due to the high rate of vehicular movements along the road.
“I call on relevant authorities to expedite action on reconstruction works on roads in the area and across the state, to save innocent lives lost in such avoidable carnages,” she said.
