Metro
Lagos trader running from scorpion falls into 100-foot well
Tragedy struck in Alaja community, Megida, in the Ayobo area of Lagos State, after a 40-year-old petty trader, Ablavi Hunkpati, fell into an abandoned well and died.
PUNCH Metro learnt that the mother of four was running from a scorpion when she slipped and fell into the well said to be about 100 feet deep.
Our correspondent learnt that after failed attempts by residents, relatives and sympathisers to rescue her, officials of the Lagos State Fire Service were called to the scene.
Her remains were subsequently recovered and handed over to the police by officials of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency.
The Togolese woman, her husband and their four children were said to have lived in the house for over 20 years.
A resident, who did not identify himself, said the incident happened on Saturday around 2pm.
He said, “The woman has been living in the house for over than 20 years. As of the time she packed in, that well had been abandoned. Usually, people sit and relax on the planks used to cover the well. She was trying to run from a scorpion. She rested on the planks, which gave way. That was how she fell into the well and died.”
When our correspondent visited the house on Monday, he observed that the abandoned well was at the entrance into the victim’s room and parlour apartment.
The house had also been cordoned off by security operatives.
A relative of Hunkpati, who identified himself only as David, showed our correspondent a bottle of soft drink he bought for her before the incident.
He said, “She kept the drink on a drum and wanted to rid the planks on the well of insects because children usually play around there. She had finished cleaning the place when she fell.”
David explained that the victim had sighted a scorpion, and panicked when she fell into the well.
“She screamed and we rushed to see how to help her, but it was too late. She had died before anyone could do anything because the well is over 100 feet deep. We called the fire service, but when they came, it was too late,” he added.
It was learnt that the victim’s husband and children had gone to Togo to break the news to other family members.
The Public Affairs Officer of the Lagos State Fire Service, Mrs Bola Ajao, who spoke for the acting Director, Rasak Musibau, said firefighters arrived as soon they received a distress call about the incident.
She said, “We received the distress call around 2.59pm and the Abesan Fire Station, being the closest to the area, responded. The officials arrived at the scene around 3.06pm. By the time they got there, it was discovered that some of the victim’s relatives had lowered themselves into the well with ropes. They, however, could not bring her out. The fire service men recovered the woman’s corpse.
“We have been telling residents that no matter how little an emergency may appear, they should always get in touch with emergency workers. The person who tried to bring the deceased’s woman out was not trained in safety techniques and it is possible that it was in the process of dragging her with ropes that the situation aggravated.”
Our correspondent learnt that LASEMA workers handed over the remains of the deceased to the police from the Ayobo division.
“The body was put in a body bag and handed over to the police. But before we left the scene, we were told that the victim’s family members had shown up to collect it,” an official said.
A representative of the deceased’s family, who identified himself only as Volvo, said the family had accepted its fate.
He said Hunkpati would be buried in Lagos on Friday.
No fewer than four passengers sustained varying degrees of injuries in an auto crash on the Ibadan, Omi-Adio-Abeokuta Expressway, according to reports from Mega Icon Magazine.
The incident, which unfolded on Monday, involved a Volkswagen Golf car and a tricycle, commonly known as Keke Marwa, colliding at the Command area along the road, in the Ido local government area of Oyo state.
Eyewitnesses recounted to our reporter that the Volkswagen car, driven by an individual with mobility impairments or difficulties with his legs, suspected to be from an accident, was traveling from Apata to Omi-Adio when it veered off the road and collided with the tricycle heading towards Apata shortly after 6:00 p.m.
Four individuals, including the tricycle driver, were injured in the accident, while three occupants of the Volkswagen Golf, including a one-year-old baby, escaped unharmed.
Promptly responding to the scene, officers of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) swiftly took action, transporting the injured victims to an undisclosed hospital at the time of press.
In a devastating incident along the Ibi-Mango area in Ore, Odigbo Local Government Area of Ondo State, two siblings met a tragic end as they were reportedly crushed to death by a truck.
The fatal accident occurred at 10:25 am on Saturday when the victims, riding on a motorcycle, collided with a truck loaded with sand.
According to an eyewitness at the scene, the siblings lost control of their motorcycle, leading to a collision with the oncoming truck along the Okitipupa route. The impact of the crash resulted in the untimely demise of the siblings.
Confirming the incident, Ezekiel Son-Allah, the Sector Commander of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) in Ondo State, attributed the cause of the accident to overspeeding by the victims.
Son-Allah urged motorists and motorcyclists to prioritise safety on the highways by avoiding overspeeding and dangerous overtaking maneuvers.
The bodies of the victims were swiftly transported to the General Hospital Mortuary in Ore, as disclosed by the FRSC boss.
Also, the vehicles involved in the tragic collision were handed over to the police of the Ore Division for further investigation.
Israeli air strikes destroyed the Iranian embassy’s consular annex in Damascus Monday, Syrian and Iranian officials said, with a top Revolutionary Guard commander among seven members the force said were killed, amid worsening regional tensions.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps named Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi and another high-ranking officer, Brigadier General Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi, as among seven of its members killed.
Britain-based war monitors the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 11 people, including several Guards members, were killed when “Israeli missiles… destroyed the building of an annexe to the Iranian embassy”.
The toll includes “eight Iranians, two Syrians and one Lebanese — all of them fighters, none of them civilians,” Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Observatory with a network of sources in Syria, told AFP.
Iran’s ambassador to Syria, Hossein Akbari, giving a lower toll, told Iranian state TV that “at least five people were killed in the attack which was carried out by F-35 fighter jets” which fired six missiles at the building.
AFP reporters saw the annex building had caved in, and emergency services were rushing to search for victims under the rubble as sirens wailed in the upscale Damascus district of Mazzeh.
Security personnel shielded the site where earth-moving equipment was brought in to clear the debris and remove charred vehicles from the road outside, watched by a crowd of onlookers.
Syria’s defence ministry said “the attack destroyed the entire building, killing and injuring everyone inside, and work is underway to recover the bodies and rescue the wounded from under the rubble”.
– Regional tensions –
Iranian state TV said Zahedi — a senior commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ foreign operations arm, the Quds Force — was among the dead.
The Observatory said Zahedi served as the leader of the Quds Force for Palestine, Syria and Lebanon, adding that he was killed along with his deputy, his aide, and the Quds force chief of staff for the same three countries.
Two other members of the Guards and two Iranian advisers were also killed in the strike, the Observatory said.
The targeted building is next to the Iranian embassy, the front of which is decorated with a large portrait of Qassem Soleimani, the architect of Iran’s military operations in the Middle East, killed in January 2020 in an American drone strike in Iraq.
The Damascus strikes were the fifth in a week to hit Syria, whose President Bashar al-Assad is supported by Iran, Israel’s long-time arch foe in the region.
Syria’s state news agency SANA had earlier reported that “our air defence systems confronted enemy targets in the vicinity of Damascus”.
Iran’s ambassador, Akbari, vowed the attack “will lead to our decisive response”, adding “the Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate shows the reality of the Zionist entity which recognises no international laws and does all that is inhumane to achieve its goals”.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian called for a “serious response by the international community”.
– ‘Heinous attack’ –
Only the gate of the building was left standing after the attack, with a sign mentioning “the consular section of the embassy of Iran”, an AFP journalist said.
Window panes in buildings within a 500-metre (550 yard) radius had been shattered, and many parked cars were damaged by the blast.
Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad also denounced the attack after visiting the site, calling it a “heinous terrorist attack… killing a number of innocent people”, in a statement carried by SANA.
The Gaza war, which started with the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel, has devastated the coastal territory and also seen Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah exchange near daily cross-border fire.
Israel has also struck targets in Syria, mostly army positions as well as those of Iran-backed combatants.
Hamas condemned “in the strongest terms” the attack which it called a “dangerous escalation.”
Moscow, a Damascus ally along with Tehran, blamed “the Israeli Air Force” for the “unacceptable attack against the Iranian consular mission in Syria.”
The Damascus strike came three days after the Observatory reported Israeli strikes that had killed 53 people in Syria, including 38 soldiers and seven members of Hezbollah.
It was the highest Syrian army toll in Israeli strikes since the Israel-Hamas war began, said the monitor.
“Syria and Lebanon have become one extended battleground from the Israeli perspective,” Riad Kahwaji, head of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, told AFP after the Friday strikes.
The bloodiest ever Gaza war erupted with the Palestinian militants’ unprecedented October 7 attack which resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign, aimed at destroying Hamas, has killed at least 32,845 people, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry.
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