by Isi Esene
A five-year-old girl died yesterday on Iwo Road, Ibadan, when a bus she was riding in drove over petrol which was spilled on the road by a tanker with registration number KANO XF 380 DAL.
The spilled petrol was ignited by the vehicle’s exhaust and burst into flames causing mayhem.
Other occupants of the bus with registration number LAGOS XL 648 GGE were able to escape with varying degrees of injuries but the young girl was not that lucky as she was trapped in the bus unable to be rescued.
According to ChannelsTV, a senior officer of the Oyo State Fire Service, Olayinka Olunike, said the bus caught fire when it ran on the petrol spilled by a tanker involved in an accident.
“This would not have happened if they had taken to our warning because we warn motorists and motorcyclists to desist from driving on any spillage but they would not listen.
“We were in control of the spillage for about two hours before the bus came and ignited the fire with its exhaust pipe; it was the fire from the bus that eventually ignited the tanker,” she said.
She explained that the leakage was caused by one of the three storage tanks in the 33,000 litre tanker.
She assured that the fire has been successfully extinguished but the men of the Oyo State Fire Service would be on stand-by until the full content of the tanker is decanted