Five die in Lagos-Ibadan Expressway auto crash

•Gridlock resulting from multiple accidents at the Kara end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway… on Friday.

An early morning accident which occurred at Kara area of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway led to the death of five people on Friday.

The victims – three men and two women – were labourers sitting in the cargo carrier of a mini-truck that was on its way to a construction site.

According to eyewitnesses, the victims were crushed when the mini-truck was hit by a speeding trailer.

The truck, a Volvo MF7, was carrying a container inscribed with the logos of Indomie, our correspondents, who visited the scene of the accident noticed.

Even though the mini-truck had been towed away when our correspondent got to the scene, the trailer with a shredded tyre was seen at the scene.

An attendant of a car wash opposite the crash scene said only the driver of the mini-truck and another passenger survived.

He said, “The driver sustained some injuries, while the surviving passenger only had a scratch. He even came to our car wash to wash off his bloody arm.

“The mini-truck was trying to dodge a small pothole at top speed when the trailer hit it from the rear.”

The crash caused a gridlock extending from the expressway to Toll-Gate by the Ojota by-pass. Commuters and pedestrians coming from the Ojodu Road were also stranded for hours. While officials of the Federal Road Safety Commission, Ogun State Traffic Compliance and Enforcement Corps, National Emergency Management Agency and policemen were controlling traffic, many commuters escaped death as a tanker developed a faulty break and rammed into some vehicles stuck in the traffic.

All efforts to reach the office of the Public Relations Officer of the FRSC, Ogun State Command, for comments failed as there was no telephone number on the FRSC site.

But a statement on the Facebook wall of FRSC read, “Five fatalities were recorded and seven (were) injured in a crash which occurred at Kara along Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.

“The vehicles involved were a white Mark truck, white Volvo truck and a white Nissan Cabstar. The obstruction has been cleared and the victims taken to the emergency centre and the Lagos mainland hospital.”