14 die in Benin-Ore road accident

By Simon Ebegbulem

BENIN CITY-  FOURTEEN passengers in a commercial bus lost their lives yesterday, along the Benin-Ore road, few hours after the Benin monarch, Oba Erediauwa appealed to President Goodluck Jonathan to ensure that the carnage being witnessed along the road was put to a stop by completing the road project.

Vanguard learnt that the accident  occurred after the driver of a  commercial bus, with registration number XY 234 FST, heading towards Onitsha, ran into an on-coming trailer while trying to over take a truck heading towards Lagos.

Fourteen  people were reported to have  died  on the spot while  five others  sustained  injuries and were rushed to the University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH). The tragic incident occurred very close to Ogbemudia Farms, at about 11pm  on Tuesday.

Among the dead were six females and eight males whose corpses have been deposited at the UBTH.

It took the intervention of good Samaritans and policemen on routine check close to the area to pull out some of the trapped victims.

The state commander of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Mr. Olatunji Henry Sunday in a telephone interview with Vanguard confirmed the incident and attributed the cause of the accident to either over speeding or wrong overtaking  by the  driver of the bus and  also said  that both the dead and survivors were taken to the UBTH.

The Oba of Benin had expressed his concern over the delay in the rehabilitation of the road when President Jonathan visited the Oba  in Benin last Tuesday.

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