CONTAINER CRUSHES TWO TO DEATH, INJURES FOUR OTHERS IN ONITSHA

BY SUNNY A. DAVID / ONITSHA

Two persons were crushed to death and four others injured in Onitsha when a fully loaded container fell off a truck and landed on people, mostly Keke drivers and petty traders at the Odoukwu junction of the Onitsha -Owerri road in Anambra State.

It was gathered that the truck fell on passengers in a tricycle and a bus, causing a major traffic gridlock on the road.

The accident attracted a combined team of police, army, road safety and other security and emergency operatives, as well as civilians and youths for rescue operations.

Efforts to use a towing van to remove the container failed due to the heavy load, forcing the rescuers to resort to offloading the goods in the container.

Many commuters and other road users were stranded in traffic at the time of filing this report. When our correspondent visited the scene, some of the trapped victims had yet to be rescued.

The surviving victims were later rescued through the assistance of policemen from the Okpoko Divisional Police Station, officials of the FRSC and Anambra State Traffic Management Agency (ASTMA) in conjunction with the ambulance workers of the Toronto hospital.

Confirming the incident, Police Public Relations Officer in the State, Mr. Haruna Mohammed (SP), said two persons lost their lives while four others had been hospitalised.

He said the area had since been cordoned off while the road had been cleared for free flow of vehicular traffic