ABUJA, 10 September 2003 — At least 75 people died following a massive crash involving a packed bus south of the Nigerian capital Abuja, the country’s Federal Road Safety Commission said yesterday, revising earlier reports of a death toll of 70.
The crash, involving a transit bus with 52 passengers, an 18-seater minibus and two cars, occurred on Sunday about midnight, making help to arrive late, an official for the commission said.
He said, a four-year-old child was one of the few survivors of the accident, but no-one had yet appeared to determine its identity.
On Monday afternoon 70 charred bodies were picked from the accident scene by men of the Federal Road Safety Commission. However, since then some of the critically injured had died in hospital, he said.
Most of the occupants of the luxury bus were said to be fresh university graduates deployed to do the compulsory one-year national service in Abuja, the road safety official said.
The official reiterated the commission’s advice against night travel which he said was dangerous because of accidents and armed robbery attacks.
A resident of the area said a loud bang was heard from the highway, but nobody imagined it was an accident.
“It was in the early hours of Monday that we noticed smoke on the highway and on getting there, we saw charred bodies littering the ground,” said Musa Abdullahi.
Samuel Adetoye, police commissioner of Kogi state, where the accident occurred, asked families who had relatives traveling in the area to visit hospital morgues to try to identify the dead.
A mass burial was planned yesterday for the victims whose remains were unclaimed, Adetoye said.
