Several persons were crushed to death while scores were severely injured in a ghastly accident in Onitsha, commercial city of Anambra state.
The accident, which happened around Toronto hospital along Upper Iweka and MCC axis of the Onitsha-Awka expressway, involved a trailer laden with kerosene.
The trailer, according to sources, was heading towards Upper Iweka from Awka axis when the driver lost control as a result of brake failure.
Eye witness account had it that the driver in a bid to control the vehicle veered off the speed lane to the service lane where traders displayed their wares by the side of the road.
“The trailer crushed some of the people who are mostly petty traders as it dragged along the road before it finally stopped,” one of them narrated.
He said bodies of the victims littered along the way were still being evacuated by security operatives who arrived at the scene almost immediately.
Confirming the incident, the Chairman of Red Cross Society in the state, Prof. Peter Katchy, said seven persons died on the spot and have been deposited at the morgue.
He said: “We were able to rescue about three persons who sustained severe injuries while the bodies of the deceased have been deposited at the Toronto hospital mortuary.”
Katchy, who said he was on his way back from Awka, when he arrived at the scene of the accident, said officers of the Federal Road Safety Corps and the police assisted in the rescue operation.