NINE PERSONS last Saturday night perished in an accident on the Berekum-Sunyani highway near Nsoatre- Amanfoso when the Mercedes Benz Sprinter bus on which they were travelling had one of its rear tyres burst and somersaulted three times before landing in a ditch.
Nineteen others also sustained various degrees of injury and are currently receiving treatment at the Berekum Holy Family Hospital.
The bodies of the casualties – four females and five males – which were initially sent to the same hospital were later transferred to the Brong-Ahafo Regional Hospital in Sunyani for preservation.
The driver of the vehicle with registration number BA 2423- 12, Kwabena Boakye, 36, has been detained at the Sunyani Municipal Police Command to help in investigations.
Kwabena, who sustained minor injuries, was initially admitted at the Holy Family Hospital where he was treated and discharged and later arrested by the police.
Briefing DAILY GUIDE on the accident, the commander of the Regional Motor Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD) of the Ghana Police Service, Superintendent Stella Sedame, said the victims were returning from a funeral at Womanahiso to Biadan, a farming community in the Berekum municipality when the fatal accident happened. According to her, all the 28 mourners on board the vehicle were from Biadan. Superintendent Sedame said six of the passengers died on the spot, whilst three passed on later at the hospital. The accident, she said, happened at about 5:20 pm on Saturday.
The dead, she said, were identified as Afia Charity, 55; Stephen Kwasi Kyere, 65; Issifu Kramo, 62; Kyere Daniel, 42; Bediako Michael, 65; Abena Foriwaa, 50; Rose Tawiah, 62; Mary Kyeremeh, 70 and Atta Kwasi Stephen, 43.
Explaining the cause of the accident, Superintendent Sedame said the driver was speeding when the rear tyre of the vehicle got burst making the driver lose control of the steering wheel and in an attempt to brake, the vehicle somersaulted three times before landing in a ditch. The windscreen broke into pieces, whilst the body of the vehicle got mangled, with some of the passengers trapped in it. Some of them, the police officer claimed were thrown out of the vehicle through the windows.
When DAILY GUIDE and MTTD personnel visited the hospital, the nurse on duty, Kwesi Appia Gabriel, told the paper that the victims on admission were responding to treatment.
BA MTTD station officer, Chief Inspector George Takyi, told the paper that the area is accident prone and so had cautioned motorists to exercise patience when they reach there.
The burst rear tyre
The mangled vehicle
FROM Daniel Y Dayee, Berekum
[email protected]
