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Regional News of Wednesday, 26 May 2021

Source: www.ghanaweb.com

Tanker explosion: I watched my 2-year-old son burn to death - Distraught father

Correspondence from Ashanti Region:

•A fuel tanker enroute to Tepa hit a passenger vehicle at Onyinanufo

•The clash resulted in a fire outbreak that has killed 3 people and rendered many homeless

•Mr Asiedu shared his harrowing experience with GhanaWeb

Father of the 2-year-old boy who got burnt to death at Onyinanufo has shared how he watched his son succumb to the fire flames.

Mr Asiedu, speaking to GhanaWeb explained that his poor health status rendered him helpless when the fuel tanker exploded.

According to him, he was carried by his other son to the bush when the incident happened.

"My other son who had been sent by his mother run home to meet my helpless condition whiles our room where the child was sleeping was already on a severe fire. My boy carried me on his back to the bush," he said.

At least, three people were killed after a fuel tanker hit a passenger vehicle at Onyinanufo, a community in the Ahafo Ano South West District of the Ashanti Region, and caught fire.

Diana Asiedu, the mother of a two-year-old boy disclosed she left her sick husband with her son in the house to fetch some cassava from the farm.

"I heard an explosion and heard people shouting whiles others running helter-skelter. Others had run to the bush whiles the entire town was on fire. I saw my house also on fire which made me suspect that there was something wrong in my home.
I was told my sick husband who was also hurt by the fire had been rescued, but my son...(crying). My son had been burnt to death," she soberly explained.

The chief of Onyinanufo Nana Kwame Atuahene told Ghanaweb that, the diesel carrier caught fire instantly and overturned after it had a head-on collision with another car.

The fire swept through the community of about 600 to 700 inhabitants, destroying most of the houses they live in whiles cocoa and plantain farms were also burnt.

As a result, many of them have been rendered homeless.

Meanwhile, personnel from the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) as well as the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) visited the scene.