By Eddie Odivwri
A major disaster happened this morning at about 11.05 am when a 33,000-litre petrol tanker climbing the Festac link bridge lost compression, rolled back and fell.
It soon after caught fire after about five minutes and exploded with huge balls of fire.
The ensuing flame, assisted by the dry harmattan haze, soon spread wild into the nearby car park, where second-hand cars were being sold.
The tanker, while rolling back had crushed some two tricycles and a danfo bus, before the balls of fire enveloped the entire precinct. It was not certain at at press time if lives were lost the inferno. Some occupants of the danfo bus were seeing weeping saying the “fire burnt all my goods loaded into the danfo”.
There were intermittent sounds of explosions accompanied by balls of fire from the burning tanker and displayed vehicles.
When TheNewsGuru.com visited the scene, over 25 exotic cars had been burnt while efforts were being made to rescue many others from the flaming park by pushing them out of the park.
The burnt carcasses of motorcycles, tricycle and different vehicles are testimonies of the severity of the fire.
After about an hour of untamed flame, the federal fire service truck arrived and combated the rage of the fire, but soon ran out of water, and so became helpless, while the fire raged on.
About another hour later, the Lagos state fire service arrived, accompanied by independent water tankers.
The chairman of the Amuwo-Odofin Local Government Area, Mr. Valentine Braimoh, who rushed to the scene with senior members of his council, l bemoaned the incident. He could not confirm if any life was lost.
“We cannot confirm that (loss of lives) now, until this mess is cleared”, Braimoh said.
The accident which attracted the huge crowd, was being controlled by police and LASTMA officials.
The road was barricaded to other road users, causing a long queue of drivers.
The flame was yet burning at the time of this report while the firefighters were yet battling to put it out.
