Trailer accident claims four lives in Niger

No fewer than four people have lost their lives after a trailer carrying a container lost control and ran into a shallow river along the busy Minna-Suleja highway.

The incident, which occurred about 4:30 pm Saturday, was said to have occurred after the trailer’s brake failed, causing the vehicle to lose control and crash into a nearby river.

Before crashing into the shallow river, the trailer was said to have hit motorcycles carrying a passenger. Both rider and passenger, however, survived the incident with injuries.

The incident, which occurred about 20 kilometres from Suleja, left the driver of the trailer and three people believed to be conductors, dead at the scene.

This latest incident brings to three the number of accidents on the road in the last four days, with no fewer than 10 people killed in total.

Our correspondent, who arrived the scene of the accident thirty minutes after it had occurred, saw officers of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) making frantic efforts to evacuate the corpses of the trailer driver and his three passengers.

The injured motorcycle rider and the passenger who sustained serious injuries were rushed to a medical facility at the Gawu Babangida in Gurara Local Government Area of the state.

The officials of the FRSC at the scene of the accident refused to comment on the accident but simply told our correspondent that “our job is to clear the road for other road users. We are taking the dead to the mortuary in Suleja.”