By Tahav Agerzua
It was a tragedy of enormous proportions.
On February 16, 1970, a train derailed at Langalanga in present Nasarawa State, then it was Benue Plateau.
Several coaches of the train, filled with people and goods fell into an unimaginable deep gully.
All efforts to pull out the victims failed. The available technology at the time could not be of any help.
When Joseph Sarwuan Tarka, Federal Commissioner for Transport visited the scene, cries for help from children, women, and men rent the air – and his heart.
But there was nothing he could do.
Tarka took a young reporter, Simon Shango, from New Nigeria newspapers Kaduna with him to the scene.
The reporter was Tarka’s kinsman and former primary school pupil.
He overheard the Federal Commissioner’s wireless communication with Lagos on the helpless situation – and the terrible decision that was taken – to pour fuel on everything down the gully and set fire.
This was to fasten the death of the victims instead of allowing them to die slowly for many days or even weeks.
That decision was quickly implemented and the obviously inexperienced reporter wrote his report which was published in the New Nigerian, that government burnt the derailed train.
There was immediate uproar which took a lot of efforts to quel.
Shango, now 79 years old, told me the story when I interviewed him a week ago.
Professor Sebastian Tartenger Hon, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, is one of the fortunate survivors of that disaster.
“We left Kano about two years after I was born and headed for Gboko. On our way we were involved in the Langalanga train accident which claimed hundreds of lives. Fortunately for us, a family of five then, no life was lost,” he stated.
“My father and my mother told us the story. Even though my father passed in 2007, my mother is alive and we discuss it anytime we like discussing it.”
“I was told that my father actually wanted us to enter into one of the coaches that fell into that ditch, but my mother restrained him.”
His mother’s instincts also saved the family from another accident after the train disaster.
“They evacuated us to Lafia and a lorry came and was beckoning on us, those injured people and others from the train to join to Makurdi. My father said let’s go and join, but my mother said no, we are not going anywhere, let us rest and take some breathe. As God would have it again, after less than two minutes after takeoff, the lorry crashed and some of the survivors died while some of those who didn’t have injuries from the train accident sustained various degrees of injuries,” he stated.
Fifty five years after, Professor Hon still expresses gratitude to God for saving his entire family and pledges to serve Him all his life.
Photo: Jacob Wuese
