TheCable

About 16 passengers have been reportedly burnt to death in Osun state after a commercial bus collided with another vehicle.

TheCable gathered that the incident, which happened around 5pm in Ode-Omu, Ayeedade LGA, on Friday, involved an Ibadan-bound commercial bus with a gas cylinder in its trunk and a private vehicle coming from Lagos.

The commercial bus driver was said to have lost control after the collision, veering off the road before somersaulting and the gas exploded.

Speaking on the incident, Agnes Ogungbemi, spokesperson of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Osun command, said there are no official figures to the casualties yet.

“No detail for now because we have not been able to ascertain the dead, but the injured have been taken to Ise Oluwa Medical Center Ode-omu. One of the vehicles carried gas. It exploded and caused the fire out break,” he said.

Kareem Isau, a former National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) leader in the town, said 16 passengers, including children, were among the victims during an evacuation exercise with men of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) and police.

“Four people escaped death including a corps member and a security operative. Those that were inside the bus according to one of the people that escaped death said they boarded the bus at Aregbe motor park,” Isau said.

“The victim said a nursing mother was in the vehicle, including five children. When we were evacuating the passengers that were burnt to death in the presence of police and road safety, we counted 16 of them.”