There are worries in the land as the Nigerian Railway Corporation disclose that, at least, 163 passengers and seven crew members are still missing following the Monday, March 28 attack of the ill-fated Kaduna-bound train by some suspected terrorists.
The Managing Director, NRC, Fidet Okhiria, in a statement on Tuesday, said that five more persons had been confirmed safe and reunited with their families after the tragedy.
The statement read that the total number of safe persons who were on board the ill-fated Kaduna bound AK9 train came to 191 on Monday.
Indicating that 362 passengers were on the night train when the incident happened last Monday, the statement put the breakdown of the number of missing persons at: 46 missing persons with their phone numbers (contained in the manifest), switched off or not reachable since last Tuesday, while 33 phone numbers are ringing but still no response from the other end.
Sixty-two phone numbers contained in the manifest have continued to respond non-existent while 22 persons are reported missing by relatives, with eight confirmed dead.
This brings to 171, the total number of passengers that were declared either missing or dead, since the incident happened eight days ago.
The statement confirmed that on board the ill-fated train were 20 train crew members out of which seven are NRC staff, 10 are janitors and three are caterers.
Five of the NRC staff had been reportedly confirmed safe, while two were still said to be missing. One of the janitors had been reported dead, while three are missing with six confirmed safe.
Only one of the caterers had been confirmed safe while the remaining two are still missing.
The Corporation’s MD was quoted in the statement as saying that one more coach (SP00020) had been successfully re-railed and safely moved to Rigasa Station, bringing the total number of recovered coaches to eight, as intensive track repair works continued on site to enable the recovery of the remaining coaches and locomotives.
It stated that the corporation remained committed to the rescue and recovery of the passengers on board the ill-fated train.
