18 February 2012, Sweetcrude, LAGOS – Three persons died at about midnight on Friday when a petroleum truck exploded at Mile 2, near Festac Town, in Lagos.
It was gathered that the fire, which followed the explosion, also injured many people and burnt 39 vehicles, including a number of commercial buses.
The spokesman for the Lagos State Police Command, Jaiyeoba Joseph, who confirmed the incident, said that the driver of the truck with registration No. SB 370 ATN, was, however, at large.
Chief Kazeem Orilowo, the branch treasurer of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), Mile 2, who witnessed the incident, told journalists that their office was destroyed in the inferno which lasted for about seven hours.
He said that the incident occurred when the driver of the truck, which was laden with petrol, lost control while descending one of the loops of the Mile 2 bridge and exploded by the motor park.
Orilowo said that the vehicles destroyed were for inter-state and intra-city transportation.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that 10 transport companies operating from the motor park to cities in the South East and South South lost vehicles to the inferno.
Mr Austin Iziren, a driver with one of the transport companies, Jil Motors, told reporters that they lost a bus, while the fire consumed all his personal belongings.
Mr Fred Obroh, a manager with Ufuoma Motors, also reported that the inferno claimed two of their vehicles.
