Over 40 critically injured survivors rushed to the Ahoada General Hospital and other medical centres in Port Harcourt soon after the fire outbreak were said to have died yesterday morning.
At the Ahoada General Hospital, 24 of the victims died between midnight and the early hours of yesterday.
A staff of the hospital said they did everything they could to save the victims but their conditions were hopeless.
“Between last night (Thursday) and this morning (Friday) 24 persons have died.It is so painful seeing all our efforts come to nought because of the critical nature of the wounds.The degrees of the burns were severe,” he said.
The Rivers State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Sampson Parker spoke in the same vein.
He said survivors were dying every 10 minutes in spite of spirited efforts by medical personnel to save them.
“It is the worst scene I ‘ve ever seen in my experience as a medical doctor,” he said.
His Special Duties counterpart,Mr.Emeka Wogu said over 70 per cent of the hospitalised victims may not survive.His assessment was based on the conditions of the victims at Ahoada General Hospital.
Relatives of those who were engulfed in flames while scooping fuel from an overturned tanker flocked to area hospitals and found family members who were hardly recognisable.
Sade Orisola said she received a call to say that her brother was among those burned in the inferno near Ahoada on the East/West Road, in Rivers State.
“When I got to the hospital, I met a different person wrapped under a huge bandage,” she told reporters as she sobbed outside the Federal Medical Centre in Yenagoa, capital of neighbouring Bayelsa State.
‘Can that be my brother?’ is what I asked.”
The severely burned survivors were rushed to several hospitals as medical workers were struggling to come to terms with the high of casualty figure.
“What I can tell you is that we are still losing people,” Rivers State Information Commissioner, Ibim Semenitari said.
“In one of the hospitals where we had 13 wounded, four people had died,” she added.
More fatalities were feared at two other hospitals and the state plans to release a final toll on Monday,” Semenitari explained.
Medical workers at the hospital in Yenagoa who requested anonymity said they were not equipped to care for victims with such high degree burns.
The tragedy happened after the tanker swerved to avoid three oncoming vehicles.
Semenitari said that the toll could have been much higher had the fire occurred closer to the town of Ahoada, as even more people may have rushed to the scene to collect the fuel spilling out of the toppled truck.
“In a way, we may have been fortunate,” she said.
Governor Chibuike Amaechi has ordered a full probe into the causes of the crash.
Some residents of the area said the poor state of the road was partly to blame, but the Sector Commander of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Mr.Kayode Olagunju said such speculation was premature.
He disagreed with the state Commissioner for Health, Dr.Sampson Parker who on Thursday put the death toll at about 200.
He said: “I think this is the worst single disaster that has happened in Nigeria. The corpses I counted there (at the scene) alone, were in fact, 200 and they have not finished counting. It is cremation. The corpses were burnt to ashes. So, how many can you count? It is a sad situation. Quite a pity!”
“Most of the victims had over 70 degree burns. It will be difficult to save them. If they did not go to scoop the fuel, the situation would have been saved. We heard that over 50 victims were taken to hospitals. Fire fighters’ response should not be blamed.”
Disputing the Commissioner’s figure, Olagunju said: “Rivers State Health Commissioner is not correct (on figure of 200 as dead persons). The bodies were jointly counted by all the agencies: FRSC, NEMA, JTF, Police, Civil Defence and others involved in the rescue.
“Rivers State Health Commissioner was not there when the counting was being done. He only got to the scene and said they (corpses) could be up to 200 and he left. He did not wait for physical counting that we did.
Some residents believe many lives would have been saved if the fire service in the area had been well equipped and the men up to their responsibility.
Mr. Christmas Ede said: “Seven years ago, Rivers State Government promised to build a befitting fire service station at Ahoada Town (headquarters of Ahoada East Local Government Area of the state, but what we have there is nothing to write home about and it is not functioning.
“Immediately the tanker fell at 6:30 am (beside Oando filling station), we contacted the fire service in Port Harcourt, but an unmarked Mercedes Benz truck, with Ateco 1325 inscribed on it, got to the scene at 12:02 pm, when the deed had been done.”
