The officials of the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) and Lagos State Waterways Authority (LASWA), on Wednesday, rescued 15 passengers from boat mishap involving 17-passenger boat on the Lagos waterways.
LEADERSHIP gathered that one of the passengers was confirmed dead while another was declared missing after the boat named T-BEN departed from Addax Jetty on February 21, 2024 at about 1825 hours for Ibeshe but unfortunately ran over a submerged shoreline concrete in the middle of the channel around the Lekki-Ikoyi link bridge.
In a press statement made available to LEADERSHIP, the head, Public Affairs Unit of LASWA, Wuraola Alake, confirmed that the boat had a collision with the submerged shoreline concrete at a construction site around the power line corridor at the Lekki-Ikoyi Link Bridge.
She said, “At about 6.50pm today, Wednesday 21, 2024, an Ibeshe-bound passenger ferry named T-Ben, having departed from Addax jetty, had a collision with a submerged shoreline concrete at a construction site around the power line corridor at the Lekki Ikoyi Link Bridge.
“15 of the 17 passengers said to be on board this boat have been rescued, with one casualty confirmed, while the rescue effort is still ongoing at the time of issuing this statement.
“Officers from the Search and Rescue Unit of the Lagos State Waterways Authority, The Lagos State Ferry Services, Commercial Boat Operators and other Volunteers are still at the incident location carrying out further rescue Operations.
“The officers from the Marine Unit of The Nigerian Police Force and the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency LASEMA are currently at the LASWA office to hand over the recovered female corpse to the officers of the State Environmental Health Monitoring Unit SEHMU,” Alake stated.
