Five die as diesel tanker crushes vehicles in Oyo

Five people lost their lives on Saturday when a diesel tanker with a capacity of 45,000 litres rammed into vehicles at Aduloju, along the Ojoo-Iwo Road expressway in Akinyele Local Government Area of Oyo State.

The PUNCH reports that the crash involved the tanker, an unregistered car and four commercial vehicles commonly known as Micra cars. The victims, comprising two men and three women, died at the scene.

The Oyo State Sector Commandant of the Federal Road Safety Corps, Kehinde Dahunsi, attributed the accident to brake failure suffered by the tanker.

Dahunsi, who confirmed the incident to PUNCH in Ibadan, said nine passengers were in the affected commercial vehicles, five of whom died while the others were rescued.

“The trailer actually failed brake and went and crushed the commercial vehicles popularly called Micra that was carrying passengers and five people died on the spot. Those passengers were nine in number.

“Two males and three females died on the spot. We were able to rescue the remaining passengers. The corpses are with the police,” he said.

An eyewitness, Sukurat Babajide, recounted how one of the vehicles involved in the crash had overtaken the commercial vehicle in which she was travelling shortly before the incident.

She said the accident occurred less than five minutes after the vehicle passed them.

“One of the affected vehicles just overtook our car not up to five minutes when the incident happened. I was in another commercial vehicle. It was just like watching movies. When we got to that spot, five people had already been laid on the ground. They were two males and three females,” she said.

Another eyewitness, Kemi Oguntoyinbo, also identified the tanker, an unregistered car and four commercial Micra vehicles as the vehicles involved in the crash.

Oguntoyinbo confirmed that five people died at the scene but said she could not provide further information about how the accident happened.