Three persons were drowned after a Sports Utility Vehicle took a plunge into a river along the Okuokoko/Agbarho area of the East-West Road in Ughelli area of Delta State. Three other occupants of the vehicle were rescued.
The vehicle, with registration number DK 653 ABC, belonging to a construction firm, S.O. Olotu Nigeria Limited was returning from Bayelsa State when the accident occurred on Saturday afternoon.
Delta State Sector commander of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Mr. Rindom Kumven, who confirmed a report in Asaba yesterday, said efforts have been intensified to recover the bodies of the victims.
Kumven said the three survivors of the accident were rescued before the ill-fated vehicle sank and were rushed to Agbarho Central Hospital for treatment.
“However, the other occupants trapped could not be rescued due to the high wave of the current of the river. The vehicle was returning from Bayelsa where they had gone to work before the crash,” Kumven said.
Narrating the incident, one of the survivors, who preferred not to be named in print, said they had just dropped a colleague when the car started malfunctioning.
The victim explained that all the occupants were male motor mechanics and electricians, adding that they had gone to Bayelsa State to fix one of the company’s broken trucks.
He said: “We were returning from Bayelsa State when the Jeep suddenly stopped working on top of the bridge. The steering and the brake refused to work before we fell into the into the river.”
“The driver was not on speed. We had barely dropped one of our colleagues who live in Agbarho at the junction close to the bridge when the SUV plunged into the river. We only stopped at Evwreni to eat and no one took a drink.”
Meanwhile, the ill-fated vehicle was said to have been recovered by a team of professional divers and later evacuated to Agbarho police station with the aid of a loader.
Commissioner of police in the state, Muhammad Mustafa, also confirmed the accident and added that the survivors had been discharged from the hospital, while efforts were on to recover the bodies of the other victims said to have drowned.
