Generator fume kills 7 in Bayelsa
Seven persons on Monday night lost their lives in Bayelsa State after inhaling generator fume inside a music studio
The incident happened along Transformer road, in the Amarata area of Yenagoa.
The deceased were said to be working in the recording studio, owned by one them, identified as Akpos Barakubo
According to residents of the area, the crew worked into the night using their generating set due to outage of electricity in the state.
Newsmen learnt that six bodies were later discovered in the morning, while one who was unconscious and rushed to the hospital later also died.
It was also learnt that most of the deceased were undergraduates of the Niger Delta University (NDU), who were into recording business to help themselves in school.
As at the time of filling this report, security officers have cordoned off the area, while the corpses have been evacuated to the mortuary.
A resident of the area, Damion Asamonye, blamed the state and Federal Governments as well as power distribution company for the death of the people, saying if there was adequate power supply, there wouldn’t have been any need for using a generator at night.
He lamented the situation in Bayelsa State where Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company (PHED) will only bring light when they want to collect bills and take it shortly after customers pay the bills.
He said “Both Federal and State Governments have failed us, if there was public power supply, maybe these people wouldn’t have lost their lives in this circumstance.
“Seven able bodied young men just died like that because of the failure of government. The most annoying thing is that tomorrow, the PHED personnel will come with ladder to disconnect light that they are not supplying can people be spending their money on fueling generators despite the current hardship in Nigeria, even after paying for light bills?”
Another resident in the area, Joy Reuben said they woke up in the neighborhood on Tuesday morning to witness the tragic incident, while calling on government to ensure that there is adequate power supply in the state, so that citizens will not be allowed to die in such circumstances again.
When contacted, police spokesman in Bayelsa State, ASP Musa Muhammed, promised to find out and call back, but he did not pick his calls afterwards.
