Sixty students of the Enugu State
University of Science and Technology
(ESUT), miraculously escaped death on
Thursday, after a shuttle bus mysterious
went on fire.
The bus caught fire, few metres away
from the Enugu State Broadcasting
Service (ESBS), Enugu and the Nigerian
Television Authority, (NTA), Enugu.
Although there were no deaths, many of
the students and other passengers
sustained serious injuries in the near
stampede that resulted while escaping to
safety through the widows and other exit
available spaces in the bus.
Valuables including Laptops and handsets
belonging to the students were also
completely destroyed by the fire.
According to reports, the timely alert by
detached policemen from Independence
Layout, Enugu, saved the lives of the
students.
One of the survivors, Vivian, narrated how
the security operatives suddenly stopped
the driver, raising the
alarm that fire was oozing out from the
vehicle.
“We were saved by God through the
policemen who were coming behind us.
They stopped our vehicle and shouted to
us to come down quickly. We jumped out.
I thank God nobody died in the inferno,”
she said.
Another survivor, Ebere Okechi said “I lost
my Nokia phone, all the passengers inside
the vehicle did not know that the shuttle
bus was burning, outsiders were
shouting fire, fire before we started
jumping out from the bus.”
Confirming the incident, the coordinator
of the Coal City Shuttle Bus, Nnaemeka
Ojibe, said the fire was caused by faulty
battery.
