Gas leakage causes panic at Adentan Ritz junction
An incident of gas leakage at an LPG station at Adentan Ritz junction in Accra on Thursday morning caused panic and raised safety concerns.
Many motorists on the Adentan-Madina highway turned around to avoid passing through the Ritz junction and that created a panic situation.
Advertisement
The incident happened around 10:09 am.
The Public Relations Officer of the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS), Mr Ellis Robinson Oko confirming the incident explained it was purely "accidental" which fire service personnel were able to bring under control within 20 minutes.
He said the gas station was discharging LPG from a tanker into bulk storage and the hose developed a problem and caused the gas to leak.
The leakage spread into the immediate vicinity of the area and was felt in some residential homes and created a panic situation as residents and motorists fled the area to safety.
Mr Oko said the GNFS was called around 10:09 am and since the nearest fire station at Madina was a few metres away, by 10:10 am they were at the station and managed to bring the situation under control by 10:34 am.
Breach of protocol
He said the safety protocol was for all LPG stations to call the GNFS for personnel to be on standby whilst discharging from tankers into bulk storage and even though some stations do follow all these protocols, what happened on Thursday morning was "purely accidental."
He said if fire personnel had been informed to be on standby, what happened Thursday morning would not have escalated to the extent of people running helter-skelter since it would have been timeously curtailed.
Below is a video captured by an eyewitness showing some vehicles doing a u-turn to avoid going through the Ritz junction area.
