Auto Crash Claims 20 In Zamfara

No fewer than 20 people yesterday lost their lives in a fatal accident involving a bus and a Golf car along Sokoto-Gusau road in Zamfara State.

According eyewitness account, scores of others also sustained various degrees of injuries.

The bus was said to have left its lane and collided with an oncoming Golf car, thereby, killing 17 people in the vehicles.

Six other people were said to have died when another bus veered off the road and crashed into a nearby bush.

LEADERSHIP gathered that some of the victims were rushed to a hospital in Talata Mafara local government area of the state, even as relations of other victims evacuated them to Sokoto.

It was also gathered that the executive governor of the state, Alhaji Abdul Aziz Yari Abubakar, who was at the scene of the accident summoned the officials of Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) at the Government House Gusau to discuss about the accident.

It would be recalled that road users have expressed serious concern over frequent accidents on Sokoto-Gusau road in recent times.

Meanwhile, fire outbreaks in parts of Zamfara State resulted in the death of 15 persons and injury to more than 30 others this year, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) has reported.

Malam Abdullahi Jibo, the Public Relations Officer (PRO), of Zamfara State Fire Service, told newsmen in Gusau yesterday that the casualties were for January to November, 2012.

He said that more than 100 persons were rescued by men of the fire service during the period under review.

Jibo, who said that the service received several calls from victims during the period under review, stated that property worth about N126 million were also destroyed in the reported outbreaks.

He, however, said that property estimated at about N946 million were saved by fire fighters.

Jibo said most of the outbreaks resulted from illegal electricity wiring, storage of petrol in residential areas, and carelessness in the use of matches, candles and gas cookers.

He appealed to the public to alert the fire service department immediately there was any fire outbreak.

He also urged them to take the necessary precaution in using electricity and other things that had the capacity of igniting fire.

The PRO said that help lines of the fire service department were always free and open for public calls.

He also called on the state government to provide more fire fighting machines to boost the capacity of the fire fighters to combat any outbreak and reduce casualties.