 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(September 2024) |
The Abuja bus crash riots were an outbreak of violent riots following a massive multi-bus pile up at Abuja central bus station in Nigeria.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(September 2024) |
The Abuja bus crash riots were an outbreak of violent riots following a massive multi-bus pile up at Abuja central bus station in Nigeria.
The crash occurred on 28 August 2000 at the central bus station in the city. A gravel truck transporting building supplies to a construction site suffered total brake failure on a hill above the bus station. The truck then free-wheeled in reverse down the hill, entering the bus station at a very high speed, crushing three old buses under its considerable weight. The crash caused gallons of petrol to spill from the damaged buses which were in the process of being refuelled, flooding the wreckage and parts of the crowded bus station. A flame, from an unknown source, caught the spilt fuel, and the bus station was almost instantly consumed by an immense fireball, which killed or seriously injured hundreds of people in the station or in the crushed buses, one of which was still underneath the truck.
The bus station was in the Nyanya district of the city, which is a very poor and dangerous suburb, and thus it was sometime before emergency fire-fighter services arrived and combatted the blaze, which was mostly being fought by local people as best they could. The police did not show up until much later.
At least 70 were killed in the blast and well over 100 badly injured. The full death toll cannot be known, as there is little available census information for the area, some bodies were destroyed outright in the blaze, and others may have been removed by relatives before the recovery operation began. Others died later in hospital from their terrible injuries.
The crash was determined by police to be the result of the truck's faulty brakes, but local people expressed anger at that conclusion, claiming that the brakes were just one of a number of factors which led to the disaster. They claimed that the road approaching the bus stop was too narrow and totally unmaintained, resulting in damage to vehicles and allowing the truck to roll straight into the bus station, which had no protection against this type of incident in place such as concrete or metal defences to fend off speeding vehicles.
The crash had also come after a series of high-casualty accidents, including two in the last few months that killed over 20 people and another which killed over 50. On the following day, furious at the poorly maintained roads, incompetent or corrupt officials and total lack of road security or law-enforcement by police, people in Nyanya took to the streets in protest. This protest was supposedly arranged to convince the federal government to step in and widen the dangerous road.
Events of the day are confusing, some claiming that the protests were peaceful and that what occurred was a police riot, others suggesting that there was an all out riot in progress which the police had to put down. The police report that a policeman was killed by a gunshot as they approached the protesters, whilst protesters claim the death of the policeman occurred after the riot broke out. The eventual result was that the police opened fire on the crowd, killing four and then pursuing, beating several more people. [1]
Riots continued in Nyanya and other areas of the city, both related to the bus disaster and in protest at police brutality and government corruption, as well as opportunistic. Parts of the city were damaged, with several cars and buildings set on fire by the mobs. Another major vehicle crash, the Ibadan tanker truck explosion three months later, also provoked riots, aimed specifically at the police.
Nigeria was at this time experiencing a period of massive social upheaval and unrest. The country was extremely poverty stricken, with huge shanty towns filled with rebellious groups, free to express some of their resentment at the government following the fall of the thirty-year military dictatorship in 1999. On top of this, the country was, and still is, heavily divided along religious lines, with the North being predominantly Muslim whilst the South is strongly Christian. Strong friction between the communities was the catalyst for dozens of inter-communal riots at this period, and it is possible the protest following the bus station disaster were linked to the wider violent protest movement in Nigeria at that time.
The Caldecott Tunnel fire killed seven people in the third (then-northernmost) bore of the Caldecott Tunnel, on State Route 24 between Oakland and Orinda in the U.S. state of California, just after midnight on 7 April 1982. It is one of the few major tunnel fires involving a cargo normally considered to be highly flammable, namely gasoline.
The following lists events that happened during 1987 in South Africa.
The Ibadan petrol tanker explosion was a major accident on the road from Ibadan to Ifẹ in Nigeria on 5 November 2000. There was a long tailback and a petrol tanker was unable to brake in time and so rammed the queue, causing an explosion and fire which destroyed over 100 vehicles and killed many people. Hundreds of people were burnt and this placed a high load on the Oyo State's medical services. This was one of a series of road accidents with a high death toll in Nigeria and these have continued with further tanker explosions in 2018 and 2019.
In November and December 2006, the desecration of an Ambedkar statue in Kanpur triggered off violent protests by Dalits in Maharashtra, India.
There have been a number of train accidents on the railway network of Victoria, Australia. Some of these are listed below.
In July 1981, the inner-city district of Moss Side in Manchester, England, was the scene of mass protesting. The protests at Moss Side started at the local police station and later moved into the surrounding streets over two days. Key factors seen as fuel for this protest were racial tension, due to frequent allegations of police officers racially abusing and using excessive force against black youths in the area, and mass unemployment brought on by the early 1980s recession. Unemployment was at a post-war high across the nation during 1981, but was much higher than the national average in Moss Side.
There have been a number of train accidents on the South Australian railway network. The first known incident in this list occurred in 1873 in Smithfield.
This is a list of significant railway accidents in Queensland, Australia.
Occupy Nigeria was a socio-political protest movement that began in Nigeria on Monday, 2 January 2012 in response to the fuel subsidy removal by the Federal Government of President Goodluck Jonathan on Sunday, 1 January 2012. Protests took place across the country, including in the cities of Kano, Surulere, Ojota, Abuja, Minna, and at the Nigerian High Commission in London. The protests have been characterised by civil disobedience, civil resistance, strike actions, demonstrations and online activism. The use of social media services such as Twitter and Facebook was a prominent feature of the protests. Post Occupy Nigeria and 2015, the Nigerian Government under the new president, Muhammadu Buhari have increased fuel prices from N87 to N145 with little resistant possibly due to the fact that Nigerians are beginning to realize that fuel subsidies are actually inimical to the country's growth rather than a mechanism towards helping the poor.
On 14 April 2014 at about 6:45 am, two bombs exploded at a crowded bus station in Nyanya, killing at least 88 people and injuring at least 200. The bus station is 8 km southwest of central Federal Capital Territory.
The 2019 Johannesburg riots occurred in the South African city of Johannesburg from 1–5 September 2019, leading to the deaths of at least seven people. The riots were xenophobic in nature, targeting foreign nationals from other African countries. Retaliatory actions by rioters in other African nations was taken against South African brands. The South African Institute of Race Relations stated that the riots were similar in nature and origin to the 2008 xenophobic riots that also occurred in Johannesburg.
Abuja attack may refer to:
On 20 January 2022, a large explosion occurred along the Tarkwa-Bogoso-Ayamfuri road in Western Region, Ghana, after a truck transporting mining explosives collided with a motorcycle. The explosion levelled the nearby Apiate village, killing 13 people and injuring 200.
Events in the year 2023 in Nigeria.
Nyanya is a satellite town in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. It is located to the southwest of the city of Abuja and it is 4 kilometers from Asokoro and 6 kilometers from Three Arms Zone. Nyanya is one of the most populated satellite towns in the FCT. It is a border town between FCT and Nasarawa State and serves as a major rout linking FCT to the north central and north east regions of Nigeria.