Photo:
Sun News Publishing
Emmanuel Ibe
Date:
Sun, 07/15/2012 - 01:30 She said: “Aunty, my father is dead. I don’t have a father again. Who will pay my school fees now?” Her teacher, Miss Onini O. Confidence, could not hold back tears, she broke down and wept bitterly. The bitterness and agony was pervasive. Not far from them was wife of Emmanuel Ibe from Anambra State, whose husband lay naked like a log of wood in their one-room apartment, groaning in agony of pains tormenting him from the first degree burns he sustained.
Emmanuel Ibe, who trades in school bags, depicted a picture of sorrow. His wife, who spoke with Sunday Sun, said what saved her husband was that immediately his body caught fire, he ran inside a pool of water nearby, others who did not do so died on the spot. “We took him to General Hospital, but there was no attention, no light and people were dying at close intervals, so we brought him back home.”
He was burnt from head to toe. His wife, who saw the team of newsmen from Sunday Sun, thought they were health workers sent to assist them, and pleaded, “Please, what can you do to help me, please, help me, I don’t know what to do now. I don’t know what to do again.” As she kept pleading, the husband would make one demand this minute and another next minute. Confusion was written all over the young lady’s face. She paced back and forth not knowing what to do or where to start from.
“I want to turn, how can you help me to turn? I have laid on this side for too long. I am getting very weak. I can no longer see. My eyes are blind. Please, somebody should help me,” the husband pleaded in agony. He was in excruciating pain. There was no part of his body one could hold to assist him change position without peeling off his flesh. He was a pathetic sight.
While this was going on, their little daughter, who would not be more than three years old, was following her mother about, oblivious of what was going on, as she smiled from time to time, while her father hung precariously to dear life. My colleague, Felix Olunkwa, who was taking photographs, looked up and tears flooded his eyes.
And he stormed out of the room and shouted, Jesus! I quickly grabbed him by the arm and pacified him to stop further emotional outbursts. From one part of the community to the other, cries of agony and sorrow over those who had died among the victims rented the air .
Among the lessons of the incident were that some of the victims died because of unavailability of medical care, poverty and stubbornness. Nnamdi Johnson, 26-year-old radio technician, whose cousin, Ada Ebere, 25, was consumed by the explosion, narrated a similar gory experience:
“When I woke up in the morning, I heard Ada with some other people saying they were going to scoop fuel from the place a tanker fell. I told them I was not going with them. Ada’s mother told her not to go, but she refused.
She went and was burnt in the fuel fire, and we took her to General Hospital as was directed by government people, but getting there, there was nobody to attend to her, there was not even light in the hospital. After some time, we took her to a traditional healer and later she died and was buried without any waste of time, because she was a young girl.”
Finegirl Richard, a native of Apatabor, who owns a shop at Uyakana community, said: “We have seen many people, who died in the fire, being carried by their relatives in wheelbarrows to their respective homes for burial. Some were burnt beyond recognition. One of the victims was only identified by what he was wearing.
Others who couldn’t be identified would probably be buried in a mass grave. There was a pit where the spilled fuel accumulated and this attracted many of the scoopers and immediately the explosion occurred everybody there was consumed and reduced to ashes. It was even hard to differentiate between male and female, because the bodies were badly burnt, but there was a woman who strapped her child to her back and was consumed with the child.
I have been so depressed that I have not been able to eat any food. Some families lost both parents. There was a man whose only son refused to heed his advice, but died in the inferno. The father even struggled with the jerrycan he was carrying with him and he pushed the father aside and rushed out. When they brought back his corpse, the father asked them to bury him naked, and it was done.” A housewife and nursing mother, Mercy Remember, whose husband escaped death, has reason to thank God for saving her husband even though he was badly burnt.
According to her, she was in her house when she heard two explosions at close intervals, adding: “I did not even know that my Oga was affected. People came to tell me. When I saw my husband’s face as he came back, I didn’t recognize him because he was as black as charcoal. He told me there were people who had turned to charcoal and cannot be identified.
There were more than 100 dead bodies there . The reason for all these things is poverty. Those who went there did so to fetch some fuel and sell in order to eat. He said he was there before the tanker exploded, but he was not close to it. He was burnt when he went forward to save one little boy that was struggling to escape from the inferno, as he fell into the fire.
With all the strength he could muster he stood up and ran from the fire, but not without sustaining burns on his hands and face.” She said further, “If you see human beings as white as chalk, they resemble pigs wey they soak for hot water. How I for do with three children. Even if I do ashawo (prostitute) all my life, I for no fit train them. I thank God for saving the life of my husband even though the fire burn am. E go dey well small, small.
She also said there were five Yoruba boys living in the community who died on the spot. A 26-year-old secondary school graduate waiting for admission, Godbless Ike, thanked God that he did not go to scoop the spilled fuel. Said he, “I did not go there. The indigenes of this community are finished, we are just an empty community. The tanker fell down and petrol was gushing out and many did not know that it was petrol. They thought it was kerosene.
The driver said the tanker fell about 5 a.m. and many who came there had been soaked in petrol and they were all dazed, and some were already staggering, and immediately the explosion occurred they had no strength to run and were consumed,” adding that, “Some people believe here is a spiritual angle to the tragedy.
A sales attendant at a filling station told us she saw a very tall man who came to that place when the tanker fell, used his leg to draw a line of demarcation between the place the tanker fell and the filling station she worked and told them they should not worry, that nothing would happen to the filling station.
By this time, the tanker had not exploded and nobody knew it was going to explode. And the exact thing the man said happened. Upon all the people that died there, the fire did not affect the filling station, which is in the vicinity of the tragedy. Many people in the community believe it has a spiritual undertone.”
An old woman, who cannot remember her age, Susana Million, who spoke through an interpreter, said she was happy her child did not die, but she was sorrowful for many others who died in the inferno. I want government to help us in this place. Our people are finished.
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