By Uche Mbah
The last may not have been heard of the explosions that rocked Akure town in Ondo state, leaving a huge crater and confounding indigenous people, many of who have resorted to myths and folklore to explain it away.
Recall that an explosion rocked Akure at about 1am on Saturday March 28 , injuring 13 persons and destroying over 70 houses and making a deep crater on the Akure-Owo highway. Since then, there has been confusion over the cause of the explosion, with many fearing terrorist attack. The Police however, claimed that it was caused by an explosion from a truck carrying explosives meant for the explosives ordinance in Edo State.
According to the Ondo state commissioner of Police, Adie Odie, a truck carrying explosives developed technical faults causing the explosives to detonate and bury the vehicle in the crater. With this, they tended to explain away the non existence of vehicle wreckage at the site.
But skeptics pointed out that there is no way pieces of the wreckage will not be evident. Besides, eye witness accounts indicate that the sound of explosion was heard only once and shook the whole area around the epicenter. Explosives could have made multiple sounds.
But the National Space Research and Development Agency, NASRDA, disagreed, insisting on a different explanation for the event.
A statement by the spokesperson of the agency, Dr. Felix Ale, claimed that it may have been caused by the fall of a meteorite at the area.
“The explosion could be a natural phenomenon of a suspected fall of a meteoric from an asteroid belt on great speed from space.” Ale said:
“The global space community has a catalogue of a near-earth object that is potentially hazardous to humanity and they are constantly being monitored by organisations such as the National Space Research and Development Agency across the globe. Some of these natural occurrences may once in a while, escape observation and occur naturally as it is likely the case in the Akure explosion.”
Again, the lack of evidence of a meteorite at the site may have created doubts as to what actually caused the explosion.
American Space agency, NASA, has been warning that an asteroid with the diameter of about two miles is expected to fly close to the earth April 29, but will not hit the earth. This has created speculations that this may be a broken piece-more like a forerunner-of the asteroid that actually hit the earth. But there was no eye witness account as to the arrival.
The last time and meteorite landed in Russia, people witnessed the fireball as it landed and disintegrated Pieces of the rock were later reportedly picked for scientific research.
Meanwhile, tales have been rife in the village of mythical gods marching their feet on the area, thereby adding to the confusion.The police said they are still investigating.
