Contrary to reports in the media that a blast from the Calabar Transcorp Metro Hotel fire of last Friday, which consumed all of the hotel’s multi-million naira power plants, was responsible for the car crash involving an 18-seater bus with registration number, XA 946 ZLL, belonging to the Akwa Ibom Transport Corporation, AKTC, the driver of the bus (name withheld) has refuted the news story, informing calitown.com that “my accident was not caused by any blast”.
Speaking when calitown.com cornered the driver as efforts were being made to remove his bus from the accident scene, he truthfully informed that his bus, arriving Calabar from neighbouring Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, had a brake failure which informed his decision to veer the bus off the road into the drains opposite the hotel instead of drive into the stream of cars in traffic, close to the scene of the fire. This decision he believed, averted what could have been another disaster while the Fire service and allied agencies were battling to contain the Metro fire.
The driver thanked God that in all that happened; none of his passengers sustained any injury. A careful examination of the bus by calitown.com revealed plausible signs to corroborate his story. The wheel of one of the front tyres had brake fluid spewed all over it from the damaged hydraulic pipe that may have caused the brake failure.
