No fewer than 19 passengers were burnt to death on Saturday in an accident along the Akure-Owo Expressway in Ondo State.
Confirming the incident, the Public Relations Officer of the Ondo State Police Command, Mr Femi Joseph, said that bodies of the victims had been deposited at the mortuary of the Ondo State General Hospital in Akure.
He explained that the accident involved a fully loaded 18-seater bus moving towards Abuja and a lorry moving in the opposite direction.
Joseph said that the lorry had a head-on collusion with the bus while trying to avoid a pot hole on the road, after which the bus went up in flames with no single survivor.
“Today being June 8, at about 0330 hours, immediately after airport junction at Oba-Ile in Akure, there occurred a head-on coalition between a lorry with registration No. GG 873 XM Lagos and an 18 passenger-seater bus with registration No. YLA 25 XU Adamawa.
“The 18 people burnt without a survivor, while the lorry driver and the motor boy ran away to unknown destination.
“The cause of the accident was as a result of the lorry dogging a pothole when it swerved and had a collision with the bus going to Abuja while coming from Owo.
Effort to trace the fleeing driver of the lorry is ongoing,” the police spokesman said.