Tragedy struck at Isolo, Lagos mainland, on Tuesday morning after a bus loaded with several 50 litre kegs of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) exploded, killing three people.The incident, which occurred at Musiratu Lasisi Street at about 4:30am, was reportedly caused by a brake failure.According to eyewitnesses, the bus was coming from Ikorodu, but had a brake failure along James Oni Street, which made it to nosedive into nearby Musiratu Lasisi Street.
The four- passenger bus, according to eyewitnesses, rammed into a truck parked in front of a bakery and exploded on impact. A motorcyclist, Femi Ajibola, who said a deafening explosion woke him from sleep at about 5:00am, told The Nation that only the driver of the bus survived the incident. The motorcyclist said he heard the driver screaming “Alhaja is in the bus” and crying for help. He said:
“I was sleeping at the top of the building because of heat and suddenly I heard a very loud noise like bomb. So, I looked down and saw fire. “I woke up my other colleagues and told them that something was wrong and that there was fire. I now went down and removed my motorcycle and that was when I saw one man sitting by the pavement of Kembroz School.“He was screaming for help, but no one could near him because the fire was much. He came out from the passenger seat and eventually died. “But the driver also came out of the bus from the other side. He was rescued by people in the Cele church (Celestial Church of Christ) and was taken to Isolo General Hospital.
“The bus had several 50 litre jerry cans and all of them contained petrol. It looks like they are vandals or they went to buy vandalized fuel because there were very few seats in the bus.”
Another eyewitness, Deji Ogunleye, told The Nation that while two corpses were retrieved, the third one was completely dismembered. He said officials of the Red Cross who got to the scene before other agencies could not do much until the arrival of personnel from the state fire service.
“At first they tried to use fire extinguisher to put out the fire on the body of one of the victims, but they could not achieve much.
“It was one of my church members, Kayode, who rescued the driver of the bus and took him to Isolo General Hospital. But the driver was later moved to Gbagada General Hospital by rescue workers.”