Tragedy struck early Sunday morning along the Maryland axis of Lagos State, Nigeria, as a series of multiple accidents resulted in the loss of at least three lives and several others sustaining injuries. The incidents occurred around 1 am, according to Nosa Okunbor, the Head of the Public Affairs Unit of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA).
Okunbor revealed that the first accident involved a diesel-laden tanker that suffered a mechanical failure, known as brake failure, causing it to lose control and crash into several vehicles, resulting in the deaths of three people and injuries to an unspecified number of others. The LASEMA team arrived at the scene around 1 am to find another accident involving a containerised truck that had collided with a MACK truck, leaving the driver with a leg injury.
The second accident occurred when an articulated truck, carrying a fully loaded 40-foot container, collided with a MACK truck, also unregistered, loaded with refill industrial bottles. The crash was attributed to reckless driving and speeding, resulting in multiple fatalities, with the bodies removed before the LASEMA Response Teams arrived at the scene. An unspecified number of people were critically injured and had already been taken to various hospitals by the time the LRTs reached the scene.
The LASEMA spokesperson identified the vehicles involved in the accidents as two Volkswagen Vanagon commercial buses, one Mitsubishi Space Bus, two mini-buses (Korope), and one Honda car. Emergency responders, including the LASEMA team, the police, and operatives from the Lagos State Fire and Rescue Service, worked tirelessly to secure the area, implement critical safety and traffic control measures, and recover all vehicles involved in the road accident, which led to the temporary closure of the road and bridge.
Recovery efforts began immediately upon the arrival of equipment at the scene, with the LASEMA Response Teams working closely with other responders to recover all vehicles involved in the road accident and alleviate the traffic gridlock caused by the incident.
