Four members of staff of a new generation bank on Thursday had their lives cut short following a heavy downpour that engulfed the city of Onitsha and its environs.

The tragedy which happened around Ogbo efere area along the Enugu-Onitsha expressway took the lives of four people.

According to an eyewitness account, the car the deceased was in was swept off the road into the big gutter which was filled with flood.

The deceased, three of whom were identified as Eby, Uju, Ezenwa, were said to be working at a bank branch in Okpoko, Ogbaru Local Government Area of the state, before the incident.

Information reaching News Express has it that the deceased had left their office after close of work in one of their official cars for their homes despite the rain that was pouring down.

However, in the midst of the flood that had taken over the road, the driver of the vehicle said to be an accountant in the bank made effort to beat the force of the flood but failed as the car suddenly plunged into the drainage channelled to the River Niger.

A resident of the area who gave his as Ifeanyi Okeh said that the occupants of the car may have died from drowning saying that the car was completely covered in the flood.

He said the force of the flood swept the car away into Sakomori (drainage) connected to river Niger which is about 15 feet deep and filled to the brim.

Okeh said: “The driver tried to resist the force of the flood but could not because of the size of the vehicle.

“I saw about four of them with one little girl as they were panicking and screaming for help inside the car.”

He said that though the car was recovered after the rain stopped, the accountant’s body was not found in the car with the other three but was later recovered the next day.

“I don’t know if the little girl was carried into the River Niger by the flood.

“There was nothing anybody could do because of the depth of the gutter. We watched helplessly as they got drowned. It is quite unfortunate,” he added

The Okpoko Divisional Police Officer could not be reached for confirmation, but a Senior Police Officer who preferred anonymity said they were aware of the incident.

He said the corpses had since been deposited in a nearby morgue.