The Appiatse explosion and eyewitness accounts
It is more than two weeks and it is still not very clear from official sources what actually caused the accident involving the vehicle which was transporting explosives to a mining site and the eventual explosion at the Appiatse community in the Prestea Huni-Valley District in the Western Region, which razed down the entire settlement to the ground on January 20, 2022.
Apart from the police’s initial public statement and subsequent situational report (sitrep) that gave a preliminary account of what happened, there has not been any other official public statement giving an account of what actually caused the accident.
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The police said their preliminary investigation had established that the DAF van carrying the explosives collided with a motorbike. The police mentioned there was a police escort and went ahead to name the policeman who was escorting the explosives as D/Cpl Isaac Kamanim of the Firearms Unit at Tarkwa.
The police statement did not, however, indicate whether the said police escort was in a different vehicle ahead of the van, or was in the same DAF van with the driver. Neither did it mention whether there was another escort vehicle behind the van.
The DAF van with registration number WR 2252-18 (driven by Alfred Pappoe) was traveling from Tarkwa to the Chirano Gold Mines in the Western North Region when it was involved in the accident at Appiatse, near Bogoso.
Eyewitnesses
However, there have been some varied accounts by some eyewitnesses, opinion leaders in the Appiatse community, a chief and the Prestea-Huni Valley Municipal Director of Education, partly discounting what had initially been put in the public domain by the police.
Those accounts have come from Mr John Boateng, a welder, whose workshop - “Fiko’s Metal Works” - was located near the highway where the accident occurred; the Chief of Bepo, near Bogoso, Nana Ataa Brembi II, one of the accident victims and rider of the motorcycle involved in the accident, Philip Mensah and the Prestea-Huni Valley Municipal Director of Education, Mary Vida Kwofie.
It has become clearer from the various accounts that there was a first accident involving a BMW motorcycle and a Sprinter mini bus before the second accident, which later led to the explosion.
The accident happened about 10 minutes to midday on that Thursday, January 20, 2022.
A tricycle, popularly referred to as “Pragya”, and another mini bus have also been mentioned as part of the causes of the first accident. The tricycle is said to have crossed the mini bus. The mini bus, which was being followed by the BMW motorcycle, stopped abruptly and caused the motorcycle to also stop abruptly.
The Sprinter bus, which followed the motorcycle, hit the bike and knocked the rider – Philip Mensah -and the pillion rider, a female, to the ground. That Sprinter bus is said to have sped off without stopping.
Eyewitnesses went to the aid of the BMW bike rider and the pillion rider and took them to the hospital.
Second accident
From the eyewitness accounts, yet to be corroborated by the police, the second accident involved the DAF van which was carrying the explosives. It ran over the BMW motorcycle which was still lying on the road after the first accident. The motorbike went under the DAF van and suddenly sparked off fire.
The dragging of the motorcycle on the road and the spilling of fuel from the bike on the road ignited the fire. This forced the driver of the DAF van to stop the truck to verify what had happened, only to realise that the under chassis of the van had caught fire.
Realising and sensing an imminent danger of explosion, the driver of the DAF took to his heels while warning bystanders and oncoming vehicles to flee for their lives but his plea fell on deaf ears.
Upon seeing the fire, some passengers in buses and other commercial vehicles which had parked on the same stretch got down to take pictures and videos of the burning van.
The van continued burning for between 10 to 15 minutes before the first blast or explosion occurred.
Schoolchildren
The report that the driver saved some schoolchildren by alerting them to leave the area has also been punctured, as it has turned out that the three-classroom block near the location of the accident was not in use and therefore there were no pupils in the block at the time of the accident.
According to the Prestea-Huni Valley Municipal Director of Education, “there is no school there. The building there and being misconstrued as a school building with children used to be a training centre for the mining company, former Golden Star Resources [now Future Global Resources].
“They gave it to the community when they left. So the community decided to use it for a KG. But the parents could not pay the community teachers. Currently, the chiefs and people have approached the education directorate that GES absorbs it as a school into the public sector. The process is currently ongoing,” she said and added that, “it is not the case that there was a school there with children at the time the incident happened”.
Two weeks after the deadly explosion, some have returned to the community to see what they can salvage after the initial assessment by the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS), State Housing Company (SHC) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The police investigations (supported by other agencies) are still ongoing. The two companies directly linked to the manufacturing and haulage of the explosives – Maxam Ghana, and the manufacturer and JOYCEDECK Logistics, which was in charge of the transportation, have been closed temporarily and their licences withdrawn temporarily for investigations to continue.
Welder’s account
Read the full story in today's [Saturday, February 5, 2022] edition of the Daily Graphic or via Graphic NewsPlus App.
