James Ezema
27 July 2008
Last week in Lagos State was a black week for many residents as it brought with it a harvest of disasters and deaths in many parts of the state with its attendant pain, tears and grief.
Each of the disasters exposed, once again, the lack of preparedness for disaster by Nigerians who are always helpless in terms of acting as first responders in times of emergencies. No thanks to the low emergency consciousness of the people across the country.
AT Orile Iganmu area of the state, a tanker loaded with petroleum product, said to be diesel, which was heading towards Mile 2, crashed into the concrete barrier and a government steel dustbin in which residents and street traders in the area discharge their waste.
The fire that later broke out led to the death of no fewer than ten people, leaving several others hospitalised. The mother of the Super Eagles striker and Newcastle player who lived a few meters away from the scene of the disaster is suspected to have died as a result of shock after inhaling the fumes from the smoke in the early hours of Thursday shortly after the accident. Also it was reported that a naval rating was among the dead.
However, police sources at the Orile Police Station, told Sunday Vanguard that there was nothing to suggest that a military personnel died in the fire as the charred remains of the victims made it impossible to ordinarily identify any of them.
Eyewitnesses told Sunday Vanguard that when the tanker exploded and was engulfed in flame with thick smoke permeating the environment, traders going to the market to purchase their wares, residents and passengers waiting to catch early morning buses to their respective places of work in order to beat Lagos traffic hold up scampered for safety. According to an eyewitness who spoke to Sunday Vanguard at the scene of the inferno, the area where the incident occurred is not only a bus stop, but also a facility where bus drivers park their vehicles at night. Some of these drivers sleep in their vehicles.
The eyewitness who slept in one of the vehicles and who did not want his name in print said: "Vehicles park here. The one I slept inside parked there (pointing to a spot near a Coaster bus which was completely burnt by the fire). I slept here to be able to rise early and work with one of the buses because I am a driver."
He further said that when the tanker fell, it did not immediately explode but the petroleum product suspected to be diesel spilled and was gushing out. Another eyewitness, a private security operative officer who gave his name as Mr. Agbola Abiodun, narrating how the disaster occurred, told Sunday Vanguard: "I woke up at about 4: 40 a.m.
After I took my bath and was on my way to my place of work, I got to this place (the scene of the inferno) and saw that a tanker fell down.
"I saw area boys (street urchins) taking diesel out of it and I walked passed them. After walking about a mile away, I heard an explosion of the tank. I turned back, and because of the huge ball of fire and thick smoke, I went through Kekere Eku Street (a nearby street) and on coming back to the scene, I saw one soldier who wanted to rescue one woman who was caught up in the fire. But, unfortunately, the soldier got burnt also."
According to him, three pregnant women were burnt." He however blamed the police for not raising the alarm as soon as the accident occurred despite the fact that the ill-fated tanker fell less than 200 meters away from their station. "In the first place, when a thing like that happens, almost in front of the police station, they could have know what to do. I am a field operative officer, the attitude of the police in the whole matter was not proper at all," Abiodun said.
To him and a few others who spoke to Sunday Vanguard on the fire incident, if the police had alerted relevant emergency management agencies and other stakeholders in disaster management as soon as the accident occurred, the casualty, if there had been any, would have been less. "Assuming it was in another country, before the explosion, they (the police) would have known what to do to avert the explosion. The police should be blamed because they should have passed out the information before the explosion.
"Let's assume they passed out the information on time, may be what happened would not have happened. It may not have exploded," he said. Another eyewitness, Mr. Abikunle Israel, who is a resident of the area, narrated how he tried to assist one of the victims of the inferno.
He said: "When I came out at about 5.00 a.m. I saw the smoke. I thought it was a building that was engulfed by fire. On getting down here, I saw that it was a petrol tanker that fell. When the tanker exploded, another tanker was coming from Mile 2 (in the opposite direction) and ran into the fire to the shops and other vehicles that were burnt. From what I witnessed, there was a man, may be he was inside the Coaster bus, he was burnt from head to toe. I had to run to some policemen in RRS vehicle (and) so, I called one of them that they should bring their vehicle to assist that man."
Responding to his request to assist the victim of the fire, according to him, the policemen asked: "Is he your brother?" He said he answered 'no'. Israel told Sunday Vanguard: "I said, 'no, he is not my brother but I was touched the way I met him."
The policemen, according to him, said: "If he is not your brother, you should go." The eyewitness said that it was at that point he called an emergency number on his cell phone and within 45 minutes, an ambulance arrived the scene. "I had emergency numbers, so, I had to call one of them. The number is 08022887777. A man responded immediately and I told him that there was an accident at Orile bus stop. Within 30 to 45 minutes the LASAMBUS people arrived and picked up the man."
He said that it was after that time that rescue team started coming. "The rescue team came later and the area boys were angry and that made them (area boys) chase them (rescue team) away,' Israel said.
Meanwhile, last Tuesday the rescue team and the fire service weres also blamed for arriving late at the scene of fire that consumed no fewer than three warehouses at Sapara Williams Street, Ikeja owned by a Chinese manufacturing company, TRIWOOD Industries, a subsidiary of NICAPACO.
Although no life was lost in the inferno that consumed a substantial part of the company, property worth millions of naira, including plastic and paper products, were destroyed by the fire. But for the early intervention of neighbouring companies like NIPEN, a subsidiary of CFAO, Guinness Nigeria Plc, SKG Pharma, a pharmaceutical company, WAHUM, and a host of other companies scattered around the area, the entire area would have gone up in flames.
Narrating how a major disaster was averted by a team of stakeholders
in disaster management, an eye witness, Mr Olayinka Agunpopo, told Sunday Vanguard that subsidiary companies of CFAO in the area had about 4,000 new vehicles in their compound, an underground petrol tank and other property which they had to save.
"This NICAPACO company and General Import share the same fence and we have an underground petrol tank which is what we decided to save and that is why we broke through the fence so that we could ensure that fire did not get to the petrol station," he said.
Speaking at the scene of the fire incident at Ikeja, an official of the National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, said that Nigerians should embrace preparedness against disasters as they occur without notice. Also, the general manager of Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA), Dr. Olufemi Osanyintolu, told Sunday Vanguard that the agency is on top of the situation in the state and is well prepared to respond promptly. He advised Lagosians to call the Lagos State emergency number 676 in event of any emergency.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Vanguard. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
