Petroleum tanker destroys vehicles in Lagos

A petrol tanker spilled its content along the Lagos-Badagry road between Barracks and Onireke in Ojo Local Government area of Lagos in the early hours of Tuesday, causing a fire outbreak that consumed seven vehicles. The inferno, which began at about 5.00 a. m, destroyed the contents of a Mack trailer conveying crates of drinks from Intercontinental Breweries. The fire gutted a station wagon Peugeot car, one Space bus, a Toyota Hummer jeep, a Mazda bus, a container conveying food products from Delta and an empty Mack trailer Mr Ja’faru Anka, a Senior Marshall Inspector of Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), told News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that he arrived at the scene few minutes after the fire started. He said that seven vehicles were gutted by the fire, but no life was lost. “I arrived at the scene few minutes after 5.00 a.m. and as you can see, I am working with my team to clear up terrific traffic build up." An Army officer at the Ojo Barracks, who preferred to be anonymous, also said that the fire outbreak started by 5.00 a.m, while he was preparing for duty. He said that the attention of the fire service was drawn to the situation and some fire fighters were there, but ran out of water. He said that they were still expecting more response from the fire service. Some residents, who spoke with Newsmen bemoaned the state of the road, which they said, had caused more harm than good to users. Mr Folorunsho Dada, a resident of Onireke, said that apart from the fire outbreak, the road had caused untold hardship to commuters. “Just imagine in front of an Army barracks, there is no access road and this is the situation from the beginning of Alakija and even down to Agbara; this fire outbreak started around 5.00 a. m when that tanker spilled its content on the road and left through another route,” he said.