The Chief Executive Officer of Engineers and Planners, has dispatched a striking donation to victims of last Thursday’s explosion at Bogoso-Appiate, a gold mining community in Western Region.
Ibrahim Mahama’s donation is the biggest support yet from an individual to the displaced people some of whom are having to lodge in schools, churches and mosques because their homes were ripped apart from the blast.
The value of the food items has not been quantified but it is believed to be in the hundreds of thousands of Ghana cedis.
The relief items include 5,000 bags of rice, 5,000 tins of mackerel and gallons of vegetable cooking oil.
They left Accra, Sunday, January 23, 2022 to the Western Region for onward distribution to the victims.
It is unclear how many lives were lost in the explosion. Although the government has mentioned 17 lives, reports are that it could be more than that as more bodies including children have been retrieved from the wreckage.
Some of Ibrahim Mahama companies are either into mining or trading heavy duty mining equipment to companies in the industry.
Meanwhile the Bogoso to Anyanfuri road which was damaged by an explosion is currently under reconstruction.
The town of Appiate has since been left deserted following the explosion which occurred after a truck conveying mining explosives crashed with a motorcycle, according to reports.
It has emerged that the persons who unfortunately lost their lives included a seven-month-old baby.
Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, who was in the town on Friday, assured that the government will do all it can to support the affected families, to ensure that normalcy is brought back to the town.
“Government on its part is going to do everything to support the families,” he said.
In a visit to Apiate, near the towns of Bawdie and Bogoso, Vice President Bawumia applauded the rescue efforts and said the government was working to set up temporary housing for those who lost their homes.
“We will learn lessons and those are going to be much later on. For now we are very concerned about how to complete this rescue effort,” he said.
The Vice President, on behalf of the government visited the Bogoso Catholic Parish Relief Centre where over 300 of the displaced persons are being catered for and donated mattresses, bags of rice as well as GH¢200,000 for the upkeep of survivors.
Aside from the deaths, scores have been injured when a truck carrying explosives to a gold mine in western Ghana detonated, flattening a rural community, the police said on Friday.
Smouldering timber and torn-up sheet metal marked where hundreds of houses had stood in the town, a settlement about 200 km (130 miles) west of the capital Accra. Thursday’s blast left a crater roughly 20 meters (66 ft) wide. Doors and roofs were blown off other buildings, a Reuters reporter at the scene said.
Rescue workers combed the site while excavators dug through the larger piles of dirt and debris.
“We’ve seen damage to lives and property here that is just indescribable,” said Daniel Adu-Gyamfi, a student from a nearby mining college who came to volunteer with the response team.
“Yesterday … you could see human remains all over the place.”
About 180 people were injured by the explosion, police said.
In a video apparently filmed by a bystander in Apiate, people can be seen walking towards a fire on the side of the road when a powerful explosion ripped through the settlement.
Police said a motorcycle crashed into the truck, then caught fire, and a government statement suggested a roadside power transformer could have played a role.
The truck was owned by a Spanish company called Maxam that was transporting explosives to the Chirano gold mine, run by Toronto-based Kinross Gold Corporation (K.TO), police said.
The ministry of lands and natural resources said in a statement that Maxam would be suspended from manufacturing, transporting or supplying explosives for mining operations pending the outcome of investigations into the incident.
The ministry also ordered the suspension of Ghana’s chief inspector of mines, who is responsible for supervising explosives use in the sector.
Maxam, which has 140 subsidiaries operating in more than 50 countries, has not responded to requests for comment.
Kinross said it planned to provide support to the response efforts and relief items to those affected.