By Desire Emmanuel
It was a tragic scene on Sunday afternoon in Lagos State when the driver of a Tata long bus lost control, veered off his lane, climbed the road median and crashed into a fully-loaded commercial bus on the other lane, killing a woman and an eight-month-old child in the process.
The accident occurred at Anthony inward Obanikoro along the Lagos-Ikorodu highway when the driver of the long bus suddenly lost control apparently due to brake failure.
As a result of this, the bus veered off its lane, climbed the median barrier into the opposing carriageway, where it crashed into an oncoming yellow commercial bus conveying passengers from Anthony.
As a result of the impact of the accident, the woman and the child died instantly while some passengers were trapped inside the two buses and it took the efforts of men of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) and other emergency officials to extricate them from the buses.
According to LASTMA in a statement on the accident, ten victims, including the drivers of both vehicles, were extricated with varying degrees of injuries. While six were rescued from the yellow commercial bus, the other four were brought out from the red Tata bus. The injured were rushed to the nearby hospital by LASAMBUS personnel.
The accident caused massive traffic bottleneck on the stretch of the highway and both LASTMA, the police as well as other emergency officials made frantic efforts to control the traffic situation.
