Three persons were burnt to death, yesterday afternoon, when two tankers laden with petroleum products crashed into one another at the 146 Army Battalion gate, popularly called Welcome to Calabar, in the outskirts of Calabar, the Cross River State capital.
An eyewitness, Mr. Sonie Eworo, an engineer and a lecturer at the Cross River State University of Technology, said his car and his building were also burnt in the inferno that resulted from the crash between the two articulated vehicles.
An eyewitness, Mr. Sonie Eworo, an engineer and a lecturer at the Cross River State University of Technology, said his car and his building were also burnt in the inferno that resulted from the crash between the two articulated vehicles.
Eworo said: ‘’The trucks, laden with fuel, were heading out of town and at the Army Junction, one of them attempted to overtake the other. Unknown to the driver, another stationary truck was on its track.
“He rammed into it, sweeping the stationery truck off the road while the impact ignited a fire that engulfed the two trucks.”
The driver and the conductor of the truck which rammed onto the stationery one, along with a labourer digging a hole for water pipe for the Cross River State Water Board, were burnt in the fire.
Three other vehicles, a 505 saloon car, Audi 80, and a Mazda 626, parked bedside residential buildings along the road, were all burnt.
“My car and building were all burnt and I wonder what I will do now that the trucks were charred so that one cannot identify the owners,” Eworo added.
‘How church service saved me’
A resident of the building, Grace Ofana, who wept uncontrollably, said: “This is our house and usually I stay inside all the time. But just this morning my friend came and insisted we must go to church.
“I initially did not want to go but she insisted and if I had not gone with her, my daughter, Miracle and I would have been dead by now.”
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