Nigeria - 115 Bodies Recovered from Dana Crash Site

The Lagos State Emergency Management Authority (LASEMA) Monday said some 115 bodies had been recovered from the rubble of the Dana Airline crash.

The General Manager, Dr. Femi Oke-Osanyintolu, gave the casualty figure, revealing that five injured persons were also removed from the two-storey building.

He said four of them “have been treated and discharged while one is still in the hospital. The dead bodies had been taken to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH). DNA test would be conducted on the dead bodies to ascertain their identities”.

The LASEMA boss added that Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola had directed that persons who were displaced from the buildings around the site as a result of the crash be rehabilitated at the Lagos State Relief Camp, Agbowa.

It was a gory sight at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) Monday as several bodies from the crash were being brought for identification by relations.

Several bodies, including those burnt beyond recognition, were being carried out of ambulances, with hundreds of relations wailing and agonising as they identified the bodies.

A man claimed he came to identify a sister, her daughter and his cousin who recently relocated to Nigeria from the United States and were coming to visit the family from Abuja.

He lamented: “If only they had known, they would have just stayed back in the United States instead of relocating only to meet their untimely death.”

Another woman was lamenting the fate of her relative who was six months old pregnancy.

The Chief Medical Director of LASUTH, Prof. Wale Oke, said 40 bodies had already been taken to the mortuary while 38 had been transferred to Mainland Hospital, Yaba.

According to him, eight bodies from the house on which the plane crashed were first brought in on the night of the incident and only one could be identified as it had an identity card.

He added that "five bodies of the residents were also brought in from the house yesterday and have been taken to the mortuary".

There was yet a remarkable story Monday.

Lost and lonely, three Okwuchukwu kids were caught in the middle of a fire they did not start, and on the set of a horror movie they did not script.

Last Sunday, Joel (11), Esther (9) and Chisom (7) were a few metres away from home on an errand when the Dana aircraft crashed into their residence at Iju Ishaga, Lagos State.

By the time they returned, their parents were gone. Gone to the world beyond.

The story started curiously, though.

Their father, a tenant, had sent Esther to call an electrician. She took too long to return. Worried or angered, he sent the brothers – Joel and Chisom – to search for her.

By the time they returned, the place they used to know as home was in flames under the weight and explosion of Dana Flight 0992.

They had not only become homeless, they were fatherless and motherless. Their mother was also consumed in the horror.

They were loitering aimlessly Monday morning until they walked into the warm embrace of Fashola, who had gone to visit the crash site.

They could not remember anyone as a relative. All they have known in their lives was daddy and mummy.

And then a ray of hope sneaked into the horizon – there is an “Uncle Tony” somewhere on planet earth who was a member of the family. Tracing “Uncle Tony” will be the sequel to the story.

The children told Fashola they slept in the house of a neighbour Monday night, having seen nothing but rubble of their abode, with their parents nowhere to be found.

But, in the meantime, the story may still end well. They may become “children” of the governor.

Fashola, who visited the site along with Commissioner for the Environment, Mr. Tunji Bello, and his Information and Strategy counterpart, Mr. Aderemi Ibirogba, among others, took custody of the children.

He took them to the Lagos State House, Ikeja, pending when a relative of theirs would come around.

He said the state government was ready to take care of the children, adding: “They are fully protected. My sympathy and condolences goes to all of the victims and their families. It is really hard finding words to express our pain and grief here.