Tanker Explosion in Akwanga - The Emergence of a True Hero

We was seated in the parlour that fateful day when we heard the horrible sound from a distance, at first I didn't pay attention to it because my town has been a peaceful town, we've not experience crisis in my local government before and rarely do people shoot guns in my vicinity. The thunderous sound was as if it was a gun shot but I wasn't convinced it was, my thought was maybe a car tyre burst out somewhere or maybe it's a hunter's gun that sounded like that not until I heard the sound again for the second time.

I ran outside so I can understand what was going on, I then saw a lot of people running towards a particular direction, "where are you all running to? What's happening?" I asked one among the women running that evening. She exclaimed "it is fire, fire has engulf Shafa filing station" I was curious to know what happened and how comes about the fire so I entered inside, dressed up, together with my neighbour @maxwellmarcusart we head towards the incident scene so we can get a first hand information of what happened. The fuel station is close to my house so from afar I could see the large smoke hoovering the atmosphere.

I met more people going towards the same direction and some coming back already. I overheard somebody saying it's a big tanker that caught fire, some people were like; the fire as engulfed the filing station and escalated to the storey buildings on the road side and getting close to the area, everybody with his or her own story to tell.

When we got to scene, we saw a tanker on fire and it's just in the middle of the major road where houses, shops and even the fuel station is a bit far from. What could have happened, I began to ask few persons I met there and the story they told us was a good one to hear.

The tanker explosion was supposed to happen in the filing station close to the road because the tanker driver just drove inside the filing station to offload the diesel it supplied for the filling station.

According to the story, the incident started almost 40 minutes ago before our arrival and it was indeed a scene to be thankful to God for. The fire started when the driver have drove and entered the filling station but when the driver noticed the fire on the tanker he entered inside the same burning tanker and drove it away from the filing station, people's houses and shops. The driver drove the vehicle and positioned the tanker in the middle of the road were the fire had no impact on any building around there.

The good thing about the whole situation was that no life was lost no building caught fire just the tanker and the tanker alone.
For me, the tanker driver was the hero of the moment because the one fire service car that drove to the scene has no water to intervene on the situation. The removed the water pipe and very little water with no pressure was coming forth, it was a heart breaking one because that was totally unprofessional, just imagine if the fire caught up with buildings around that vicinity that was how people would have been looking at their properties engulfed with fire and nothing the fire service can do about it.

I mean it was so disgusting that they where actually there, if they weren't there it would have been that its because they were not there that the fire escalated but how comes it is in their presence the fire is eating up people's property and they could do nothing about it, it was just as if they also came to have a look at the fire incident that day.

I wouldn't totally blame them because the government are to be held accountable for poor supply of fire service vehicles and funding so the workers can effectively carry out their duties respectively.

Another thing that gladens my heart that day was that people learned from the past experiences we had in our country in regards to tanker explosion. When a tanker falls or have an accident, even if it's minor, you should find every means to go very far away from that scene because you could be a victim of fire accident.

Everybody maintained quite a good distance while we fed our eyes with the fire scene.
We are indeed grateful to God no life was lost and aside the tanker, no property was lost in the accident. The accident could have caused more damages but thank goodness for the bravery act of the driver who drove the vehicle away to a safer place and dropped it there before running for his life. He actually saved lives and property that day. All thanks to God for protection..