No fewer than eight persons, including a nursing mother and her baby, have been crushed to death in Nasarawa by a truck conveying 600 bags of rice.
The rice consignment, it was learnt, belonged to the National Emergency Management Agency in Idadu community, Doma Local Government Area of Nasarawa State. Northern City News learnt that the accident happened on Monday morning.
According to eyewitnesses, the driver of the truck, who was suspected to be drunk, lost control of the vehicle, crashing it into two houses along the road.
Apart from the nursing mother and her baby, others who died in the accident included a woman identified as Omo Talatu, an unidentified Tiv woman and the conductor of the truck.
One of the affected houses belonged to a man identified as Mr. Danjuma Omaku, whose aged mother, Otunsha, just passed away. Omaku said most of the victims of the accident were people who paid him a condolence visit.
Omaku said, “Majority of those that died in my abode were sympathisers who came to condole with me over the demise of my mother. They were at my compound when the truck lost control and crashed into the house.”
A survivor, Mr. Abdullahi Wanzan, in an interview with Northern City News on Thursday, attributed his escape to luck. An eyewitness, Danjuma Ibrahim, said he heard noises and saw the truck crashing into two houses nearby. “I heard people shouting and I had to run for my life, but before I knew what was going on, some people were hit by the fast-moving truck which lost control and in the process crashed into two houses nearby,” he said.
Omaku called on the government and the truck owner to assist his family as they had lost their shelter. “I lost over five rooms, including shops, and I have nowhere else to go to,” he lamented. Some of those who were wounded in the accident were said to have been taken to Doma General Hospital and others to the Primary Health Care Clinic in Igbabu.
