25 August 2016, Benin City – Disaster occurred in Benin City, the Edo State capital when a petrol tanker carrying Petrol Premium Spirit popularly referred to as fuel fell at the Upper Mission end of Aduwawa and burst into flame burning 12 shops, 5 vehicles parked along the road in the raging inferno which lasted for about 1 hours.
Vehicular movement was halted along the ever busy Benin Auchi expressway as motorists and pedestrians took alternative routes to avoid been caught up in the fire.
While residents within the vicinity struggled to quenched the fire before the arrival of the Edo State Fire Service who fought frantically to bring fire under control.
Edo State Fire Director, Agbonlahor Franklin, who was there with his men to ensure the fire was brought under control, said he responded to a distress call of the incident at about 8am yesterday morning.
He said “At about 8:00am this morning I had a distress call that a place like this was in fire and you know anything involving fuel is highly flammable and that is exactly what happened. As soon as the fuel tanker fell the product start flowing to the buildings because the place is sloppy which led to fumes within the vicinity.
He however disclosed that some person were said to have sustained injuries from the incident and are now being treated at an undisclosed hospital.
What happened today should be deterrent to others, both NUPENG; PTD should all put heads together and ensure that only vehicles that are road worthy should be allowed to ply our roads. We have been getting a lot of situation regarding petrol tankers every now and then emanating from trucks
One of the affected shop owners, Mrs Deborah Afuedele said her daughter called her early in the morning that fuel from the petrol tanker had flowed into the shop and shortly there was a loud explosion which burnt the shop to ashes adding she lost her goods worth over N2 million.
- Leadership
