The Tamale Metropolis has been thrown into a state of grief and bewilderment following the killing of 25 persons in a horrific road crash at Zagyuri, near Kamina over the weekend. While 18 of the victims perished on the spot, seven of them died later at the Tamale Teaching Hospital (ITR). Seventy-eight other persons sustained various degrees of injury and were hospitalised. Further investigations revealed that all the people in the truck were from Zogu in the Savelugu Nanton District in the Northern Region and were on their way to Tamale to attend a funeral. When the Daily Graphic visited the TTH, some of the injured persons were responding to treatment but the condition of 20 of them was described as critical. Some distressed family members had also gathered on the hospital premises wailing as the bodies were brought in by hurriedly commandeered vehicles. Briefing the Daily Graphic, the Northern Regional Commander of the Motor Transport and Traffic Unit (MTTU), Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Godwin Cashman Blewushie, said the accident occurred when the driver of a cargo truck loaded with more than 100 passengers, in an attempt to overtake a tipper truck, veered off the road and plunged into a gutter. DSP Blewushie said the driver of the truck, with registration number NR 1259 W, in the course of overtaking the tipper truck, saw an oncoming vehicle and decided to move to.the left, but unfortunately he lost control of the steering wheel and the vehicle veered off into the deep gutter. He said the driver of the truck, one Mohammed Abudulai, received minor injuries and had been placed in protective custody, pending further investigations. The MTTU commander said the police were in the process of identifying the victims, but noted that one of the 25 persons who died was a female. He said the youngest was 16 and the oldest 65 years old. An eyewitness told the Daily Graphic at the scene of the accident that the driver of the cargo truck failed to leave adequate space between his truck and the tipper truck before overtaking it. “When he got close to the tipper truck, he made a sharp turn to the left and made another turn to the right and that was when the truck went to the other side and fell in the gutter," he said. Source: Daily Graphic