Building collapses at Madina

Madina, April 24, GNA - Two people were reported missing and 16 others injured, eight of them seriously, when a three storey building they were working on suddenly collapsed on them at Madina on Sunday evening.

Eyewitness accounts give the time of the accident variously at between 15:00 hours and 18:00 hours. Mr Michael Klu, an electrician and member of the Holy Power International Church, said he was returning from church when he witnessed the accident.

"Eight of the victims were in very serious condition while eight others were in fair condition," Mr Klu told the GNA. He said he called personnel of the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS), who rushed to the scene followed by the Ghana Armed Forces Fire Service and then the Police.

Mr Klu said he was assisted by some young men to rescue the victims and sent them to various clinics and the 37 Military Hospital. Alhaji Abubakar Bawa, another eyewitness told the GNA that he rushed to the scene when he saw that the building had collapsed.

"I was assisted by the youth to rescue the workers, eight of whom were in very serious condition". He said he then called the assemblyman for Taatso, Alhaji Adamu Seidu to the scene.

Mr Bawa also said that 18 people were said to be working on the building when it collapsed. Alhaji Seidu said the Ga District Chief Executive, Mr Jerry Akwei Thompson, who visited the scene of the accident, intimated that the Madina Urban Council had ordered the builders to stop working on the project, but this went unheeded.

Lt. Col. Joseph K. Klobonu, Officer in charge of the Ghana Armed Forces Fire Service, said his team arrived at the scene at 19:00 hours. "We are trying to see if anyone is trapped under the debris," he told the GNA.

LT Col. Klobonu also put the number of workers at between 16 and 17, adding that the foreman could not be traced to say precisely how many workers were around at the time.

At the time the GNA called at the scene, a fire tender was throwing heavy jets of water on the building to bring down a portion of the structure that was hanging dangerously.

An excavator was scooping heaps of debris in an attempt to rescue the two or three workers trapped. A Police source told the GNA that it was not known exactly how many people were involved in