General News of Wednesday, 1 March 2017
Source: Graphic.com.gh
2017-03-01
The head of the trailer loaded with sugar fell off.
Three persons were rushed to the hospital following injuries they sustained as a container truck fell off the new Kwame Nkrumah Circle interchange in Accra Wednesday afternoon.
Fire and police personnel on hand to evacuate the scene say the three; two men including the driver of the truck and a woman, were said to be in ‘fairly good shape’.
The DAF truck with registration number GT 5557 – 11 carrying two containers loaded with bags of rice and sugar, was reported to be climbing the interchange from the Silver Cup end of the road when it tumbled through the railings with the head and one of the containers crashing down onto two stationary buses, flattening one and grazing the other.
According to the Deputy Public Relations Officer of the Ghana National Fire Service, Prince Billy Anaglate, his office was alerted of the accident at about 3:15pm, to which call the Service readily responded.
He said the victims had been taken to hospital when the firemen arrived, however it was unclear which hospital they had been taken to.
The badly damaged bus had been towed away by the police as at the time Graphic Online arrived on the scene, however the second bus, a green 207 Mercedes Benz with registration number GE 7911 – W, was wedged between one of the fallen containers and the embankment of the road with the police and fire personnel trying to tow them off the scene.
Hundreds of onlookers, majority of them clinging onto their mobile phones for a snap of the scene or for a selfie, haggled around with some expressing anger at what they said was the blatant disregard for road regulations and safety by drivers. “The driver should be punished” said an onlooker, who wondered since when loaded heavy trucks were permitted to climb overhead bridges.
Others were thankful for ‘divine intervention’, for they said the accident scene is usually a very busy spot with varying human activity and that it would have been disastrous had the day been any usual day.
