Twenty people are suspected to have died in a ghastly road accident involving a long coaster bus belonging to the Lord’s Chosen Charismatic Renewal Movement and a heavy-duty truck in Owerri, Imo state capital.
The accident on Friday morning caused serious traffic gridlock on the busy Owerri-Onitsha road.
According to an eyewitness report, some victims lay underneath the coaster bus, uncertain whether they were still alive, but stated that five of the passengers died instantly and had been evacuated by an ambulance to a hospital.
He revealed that the church bus had a head-on collision with a heavy-duty truck, and rammed into a Coca-Cola Depot along the road, killing three of its staff.
In his words, “The accident was between a long coaster bus carrying members of the Lord’s Chosen, and a tipper. The two vehicles were coming from Onitsha to Owerri but the coaster bus in an effort to overtake the tipper, now collided with it and immediately lost control. The driver tried to control the steering but it rammed into a Coca-Cola Depot where over ten of its staff were knocked down by the vehicle.
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“When people gathered and started pulling victims out from the car, we discovered that three of the Coca-Cola staff died on the spot, and others were badly injured.
“The tipper driver and his conductor also died. The conductor was forcefully pulled out of the back of the tipper and the moving tipper climbed on his head and smashed his brain. The driver also hit his chest on the steering and bled to death. It was a horrible accident,” he lamented.
Another resident said none of the church members in the bus died in the accident, although they sustained various degrees of injuries.
He said, “It was actually the Lord’s Chosen’s driver’s fault. He wanted to overtake the tipper without considering the narrow road. As I speak, so many people are still stuck under the Lord’s Chosen’s vehicle.
“We have tried to pull the vehicle out to no avail. We have used a heavy-duty vehicle to pull it out to see if there are some people under it, but no way.”
Meanwhile, efforts to speak with men of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) who were at the scene of the incident proved abortive as they declined speaking to the press.
Further efforts to speak with the Public Relations Officer of FRSC also proved abortive as his numbers were unreachable.
