Tanker explosion in Rivers community kills taxi driver, raze five vehicles

CHINEDU WOSU, MBIAMA,  PORT HARCOURT

Heavy gridlock took over the ever busy Mbiama East /West road in Rivers State on Thursday following the explosion of a petrol tanker along the Expressway, killing a taxi driver.

The explosion also caused a huge inferno that razed over five vehicles parked along the expressway.

The incident, our Correspondent gathered, occurred on Wednesday night thereby causing pandemonium in the community and forced motorists to be more cautious.
Sources said the tanker driver lost control of the tanker after discharging fuel in one of the filling stations before bursting into flames and causing panic among the residents of the area.

Following the explosion, the Bayelsa State Sector Commander of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Ikechukwu Igwe, immediately deployed his officials to the area to ensure free-flow of traffic along the busy road.

Igwe, who visited the scene of the explosion Thursday morning, confirmed that only a taxi driver died in the incident and also sympathized with those whose vehicles were burnt beyond recognition.

The FRSC boss who narrated how the Taxi driver lost his life,  said, instead of fleeing the scene after the tanker collapsed, the taxi driver opened the bonnet of his vehicle and attempted to disconnect his battery before it ignited fire and burst to flame.

According to him, in the process of trying to remove the vehicle’s battery, a spark occurred and caused the explosion.

Igwe said the command was making an arrangement to bring a towing truck to remove the tanker that fell across the road, adding that firefighters were able to put out the fire.

But as at Thursday afternoon, normalcy had returned to the road as vehicles were seem plying freely on the expressway to and from Port Harcourt and Yenagoa routes without any obstructions.