20 Dead, Scores Injured In Imo Auto Crash

About 20 persons have been feared dead following a ghastly road accident involving a long coaster bus of the Lord’s Chosen Charismatic Renewal Movement and a heavy-duty truck in the sleepy community  of  Orogwe, Owerri, the Imo state capital.

The accident which happened on Friday morning, caused serious traffic gridlock on the busy Owerri-Onitsha Road.

An eyewitness told LEADERSHIP Weekend that some victims laid underneath the coaster bus, uncertain whether they were still alive, but stated that five victims died instantly and had been evacuated by an ambulance to a hospital.

He said the church bus was had a head on collision with the heavy-duty truck and rammed into a Coca-Cola depot along the road killing three of its staff.

“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 it. The driver also hit his chest on the steering and bled to death. It was a horrible accident,” he said.

Another resident said none of the church members in the bus died though 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 narrowness of the 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, no way.”

One of the survivors of the incident said, “We’re many in that vehicle. We were going to our church programme in Owerri when we saw this accident.”

The middle-aged woman who survived with her daughter continued, “Our load is still trapped in the bus but that’s not what we’re saying now. A lot of people have been taken to the hospital, most of them were removed from under the bus.”

Another source who owned a shop at the same spot said, “I thank God for my life. I think my being alive is spiritual. I was battling with some flies in my house at about 5 this morning. I normally resume there at about few minutes to 7am but I was delayed because of the battle with the strange flies. Behold, when I came few minutes after 7am, I saw the accident.”

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 with journalists.

When contacted, the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Henry Okoye said that he was yet to be briefed by the divisional police officer.