Stampede at Legon

There was pandemonium in the three-storey Balme Library Annex of the University of Ghana on Saturday, when one of the ceiling fans on the third floor caught fire during an examination.

As a result, one student was seriously injured when he jumped from the second floor to the ground. Many others also had various degrees of injury when they tried to escape.

Students, numbering about 800, were writing an Interim Assessment (IA) examination in political science when the incident occurred.

Speaking to the paper after the incident, most of the students, who were gasping, said that about 10 minutes into the examination, they heard an unusual noise from the third floor.

Consequently, they started rushing out of the building. Whilst some thought it was an earth tremor, others said they thought that some terrorists had bombed the building.

The Times investigations however indicated that one of the ceiling fans on the third floor developed an electrical fault and caused sparks and smoke.

On seeing the sparks, one of the students shouted, "Get out! Fire!" and started to run. This created a pandemonium, which made the building to shake as the occupants of the third floor started to run helter-skelter.

Some of the students were worried that the three-storey building did not have any emergency exits. The examination paper they were writing had consequently been postponed indefinitely.