Perhaps they should be called black spots of death; but four years apart, the spots have accounted for nearly 30 lives.
On Tuesday at Ibughubu Market, Umuchu, in Aguata council Area of Anambra State, South-East Nigeria, a truck loaded with cement bags collided with a topper and left six persons and many injured.
Curiously, the Anambra State government is being apportioned part of the blame for the tragedy here.
The dead include the drivers of the two vehicles and four pperains within the vicinity of the market.
In 2015, 17 persons and “four masquerades” were said to have perished around the same spot when an accident occurred there.
Like Tuesday’s, many were injured and shops destroyed as vehicles veered off the highway.
Media reports quoted the Chairman of Ubughubu community, Chief Titus Ike, as saying the corpses of the victims were deposited in a mortuary, while the injured were receiving treatment at an undisclosed medical facility in the state.
“The first major accident was in 2015 when 17 persons and ‘four masquerades’ were crushed to death. Both accidents occurred on the sloppy portion where descending trucks atimes lose control due mainly to brake failures.
“After that accident, the Town’s Union wrote a proposal for speed breakers. The government neglected to do anything. A new Town Union administration is in place and made a similar request, but nothing was done.
“Now the officials are visiting the accident scene and talking in the direction of speed breakers”, an indigene said
In another development, at least seven persons people were feared dead with many injured in Onitsha when a kerosene laden tanker lost control at Upper Iweka, Onitsha, Anambra State and crashed.
In 2015, a tanker said to be laden with petrol lost control around the same spot, burst into flames, killing many. Others were said to have been injured.
Confirming the incident in a statement, the spokesperson for the state police command, Haruna Mohammed, disclosed that the truck driver, 35 years old Junior Shari, lost control of the vehicle and knocked down 19 people.
He stated, “Police patrol team attached to CPS Onitsha visited the scene and rushed victims to Toronto Hospital Onitsha, where Seven (7) persons comprising of six males and one woman whose identities are yet to be ascertained were confirmed dead by the medical doctor.”
The state chairman of the Nigerian Red Cross Society, Prof Peter Emeka Katchy, who led the rescue team to the scene of the accident said that they had so far evacuated seven bodies to the Toronto hospital morgue at Upper Iweka and four injured persons to another hospital.
“A tanker loaded with kerosene lost control and rammed into people and killed a lot of people from MCC bus stop down to Peace park gate. So far, seven dead bodies have been deposited at Toronto hospital mortuary.
“We took one person to the hospital where he is receiving treatment. Three other injured persons are at Beater Hospital on Onitsha-Owerri road. That is the number of causalities recorded so far; others ones we don’t know”.
