Seven students were feared dead and 10 others critically injured yesterday at Umuokpu Junction along the Old Onitsha, Enugu Expressway, Awka in Anambra State, South-East Nigeria, when a Toyota Camry car allegedly lost control and ran into students that were returning from school.

The students were said to be from Community Secondary School, Umuokpu, Awka and Union Secondary School, Amawbia. The victims were among over 30 students waiting for buses to get back home.

Sympathisers could not hold back tears as they wailed and cried looking at the innocent kids lying lifeless.

One of the students from Union Secondary School was crushed in the head and laid there lifelessly. Another victim was trapped under a commercial bus which tried to avoid colliding with the ill-fated car.

The Sector Commander of Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Anambra State, Mr. Hyginus Omeje, who confirmed the accident, could not confirm the number of casualties at press time.

Meanwhile, in another incident in the country’s South-West also involving a secondary school, there was palpable anxiety among parents and guardians in the Ogba axis of Lagos metropolis yesterday after 13 students of Ogba Junior Grammah School, Ogba, Ojodu Local Council Development Area (LCDA), collapsed after inhaling poisonous fumes discharged from one of the cottage factories in Ogba Shopping Arcade.

This came four months after 25 of the students of the same school collapsed after inhaling an unidentified chemical waste discharged into drainage by a Photo Laboratory, situated in the Shopping Arcade.

The incidents was said to have occurred at about 12:40 p.m. while the students were still in their classes.

Officials of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and its Lagos state counterpart, the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA) and the Lagos State Environmental Health Monitoring Unit (SEHMU) rushed the unconscious victims to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Ikeja, for treatment.

Of the 13 affected students, one was a male while the rest were females. One of the students was in critical condition and has been admitted at the Intensive Care Unit.

Some of the affected students are: Tijani Mariam, Subaidat Oladokun, Adebiyi Taiwo, Muiz Rodiat, Ogunbami Omolade, Onaigbe Blessing, Karimat Akiode, Rasak Gbolahan and Modupe Idowu.

The company responsible for discharging the chemical was yet to be identified as at press time, but the state government has shut the school and the shopping complex indefinitely.

•Adapted from separate reports in Daily Sun and Vanguard. Photo shows one of the affected students receiving treatment at the emergency ward of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH).

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