Thirteen persons including the driver of the commercial bus conveying traders from Onitsha, Anambra state to Lagos, lost their lives in a fatal motor accident along the Benin-Lagos expressway in the early hours of yesterday.
Edo State Deputy Corps Education Officer of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Bisi Kazeem, who confirmed the incident in a text message to newsmen in Benin, said that three other persons who survived the accident have since been rushed to the Shiloh hospital in Ugbogui, Ovia South-West local government.
The accident which occurred at the Toll Gate near Ovia North East council area of Edo state, according to FRSC spokesman, involved the ill-fated bus with registration number AAA 962 XB which had a collision with an IVECO truck with registration number AAA 962 XB.
Kazeem attributed the cause of the carnage to violation of road traffic by one of the vehicles,? and added that it took the efforts of teams of FRSC and police men as well as villagers and sympathetic individuals on the route to assist the trapped passengers from the mangled bus.
The corpses of the dead victims were later taken to the morgue of a nearby Shilo hospital at Ugbogui in Ovia North east local government area.
Also the injured were taken to the same hospital and are presently receiving treatment at the intensive care unit.
The FRSC official added that the obstruction caused by the accident had been cleared with the assistance of the rescue teams.
It was gathered that the dead passengers were traders from the commercial town of Onitsha in the eastern part of the country that deal in electronic accessories at the major markets in the area.
?