Horrific Blast Rocks Ghana’s Mining Town

At least 50 people were feared dead in an explosion in Ghana on Thursday, after a mining truck reportedly carrying explosives collided with a motorcycle, setting off a blast that reduced structures to rubble and left a gaping crater in the earth. The exact death toll from the accident in the small town of Apiate, in southwestern Ghana, is not yet known. Ghana’s police service said investigations were underway and appealed to residents of nearby towns to open their churches and classrooms to the wounded. The truck had been moving between the gold mines of Tarkwa and Chirano, the police said in a statement, adding that most of the victims had been hospitalized in the nearby town of Bogoso. Wood, rubble and metal roof sheets littered the scene in videos and pictures taken shortly after the explosion, which appeared to have leveled much of the town. Electricity lines dangled, and smoke rose from small fires dotted throughout an apocalyptic landscape. People who had heard the blast but were not hurt stood at the edge of a yawning hole left in the earth by the explosion. Aaron Awusu, a resident of Apiate, said that the truck ran over a motorcycle that had crossed its path, and the truck then caught fire. The drivers of both vehicles fled, he said, and tried to warn others to do the same, but some of them were filming it on their phones and they did not move.

SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES