43 Years After Train Accident, Ailing Survivor Dies .

The only surviving victim of the 1970 train accident in Langa Langa, Benue State, Mallam Bala Adamu, is dead. He passed on at a government hospital in Kaduna.

LEADERSHIP Weekend had, a fortnight ago, reported that Adamu, 72, had been bedridden in a government hospital since the tragic incident that claimed over 81 lives.

On Friday, February 18, 1970, Mallam Adamu, who was 29 years old at the time, had concluded arrangements for his marriage, which never took place as fate would have it. He spent the greater part of his life in the hospital.

Confirming the story, the chief matron of the hospital, Mallam Shehu Makarfi, said Mallam Adamu died on Wednesday.

He said the deceased was buried at the Tudun Wada burial ground on Thursday at 2pm in accordance with Islamic rites.

According to him, “We have buried him and a lot of people attended the ceremony but we could not get his family because we don’t have their contacts.”

Mallam Adamu had boarded the Enugu-bound passenger train from Zaria, but before he reached Port Harcourt, his destination, fate came knocking as the train derailed and fell into a canyon at Langa Langa, Benue State, killing at least 81 people on board.

The late Adamu who was on an errand to Port Harcourt was given money for taxi fare, but he opted for the free train ride which his friend had offered him. He bid his fiancée and family members farewell at the station; unknown to him, destiny was going to change his life forever.

Adamu’s injuries were grave: he had broken his spinal cord and lost his right leg in the accident which also left him blind. He remained in the hospital until his death.

The deceased, who had spoken to LEADERSHIP Weekend a fortnight ago from his hospital bed, said, “I have been on admission in the hospital for 43 years now. I was brought to Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital (ABUTH) in Kaduna after suffering a spinal cord injury following the train disaster in 1970 at a bridge called Langa Langa, close to a town in Kotoko, now Benue State.”

When asked how he boarded the train, Mallam Adamu explained, “I was not travelling to Benue State that fateful day. I was sent on an errand to Port Harcourt, the capital of Rivers State, when the accident occurred. Though I was given money to take a taxi, when I couldn’t get one to take me straight to Port Harcourt, a friend of mine that worked at the railway station offered to give me a free ticket by train. The accident occurred when the bridge collapsed, killing so many people.”