At least five persons have reportedly died in an accident involving a Coaster bus of the Lord’s Chosen Charismatic Renewal Movement and a tipper truck in Imo State.

The incident occurred on Friday morning, causing gridlock on the busy Owerri-Onitsha Road.

The bus and the tipper truck which were coming from the same direction hit each other and crashed into a Coca-Cola shop at Orogwe in the Owerri West Local Government Area of the state.

Eyewitnesses who spoke to journalists at the scene said five persons died instantly and were evacuated by an ambulance to a nearby hospital.

They said some other people were still stuck beneath the bus.

One of the eyewitnesses, however, said three workers at the depot were among the deceased.

The eyewitness said, “The accident is between a long coaster bus carrying members of the Lord’s Chosen, and a tipper. The two vehicles were coming from Onitsha to Owerri but the coaster bus, in an effort to overtake the tipper, now hit it by the side and immediately lost control.

“The driver tried to control the steering but it ran into a Coca-Cola depot where over ten of its staff members were knocked down by the vehicle.

“When people gathered and started pulling victims out from the car, we discovered that three of the Coca-Cola staff members died on the spot. Others were badly injured.

“The tipper driver and his conductor also died. The conductor was forcefully pulled out of the back of the tipper and the moving tipper climbed on him. The driver also hit his chest on the steering and bled to death. It was a horrible accident.”

A resident of Orogwe community who spoke on condition of anonymity said none of the Lord’s Chosen members died, but some sustained varying degrees of injury.

“It was actually the Lord’s Chosen’s driver’s fault. He wanted to overtake the tipper without considering the narrowness of the road. As I speak, so many people are still stacked under the Lord’s Chosen’s vehicle.

“We have tried to pull the vehicle out to no avail. We have used a heavy-duty vehicle to pull it out to see if there are some people under it, no way.”

Efforts to speak with personnel of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) who were at the scene of the incident proved abortive as they declined to speak on the issue.