Apiate Explosion: Over 500 people rendered homeless, 17 people dead

Correspondence from Western Region:

Over five hundred people have been rendered homeless at Apiate, a community near Bogoso in the Prestea Huni Valley Municipality in an explosion, killing about seventeen people and several others severely injured.

All houses in the community, church buildings, stores, and all structures have collapsed, leaving residents in the community homeless, GhanaWeb's Western Regional Correspondent,

Read full articleThomas Tetteh can confirm.

The explosion was caused by a truck belonging to a mining service contractor MAXAM that was involved in a collision causing an explosion in the community.

The truck carrying the explosive was from Bogoso heading towards Kinross, a mining company in Chirano in the Western North Region, 140 kilometers away from the explosion site.

How it happened

According to an eyewitness, who spoke to GhanaWeb's correspondent, Thomas Tetteh, a sprinter bus collided with a motorbike at Apiatse and as result, the motor got trapped under truck.

The truck dragged to the motor on the road for some few meters and the truck caught fire and extended to a nearby ECG transformer which also caught fire.

While the fire was blazing, the truck driver knowing the danger the fire poses to the people and the community due to the explosive in the truck warned people around to go far away from the fire scene, but people were busily taking pictures and videos of the blazing fire, while the driver fled.

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At once the explosives exploded and the truck got blasted into pieces beyond recognition. The vibration from the explosion was so hard like an earthquake, bringing all houses in the community down killing about seventeen and injuring an unknown number.

The location of the truck on the road where the explosion happened has caved in about ten fits down, causing huge vehicular traffic because cars from Bogoso could not cross to Bawdie and vice versa. Due to this, a bypass was created, to ease traffic.