June 3: Accra100.5FM donates GHS5K to widow

Accra100.5FM, in keeping with its mission to assist society’s underprivileged, has donated an amount of GHS5,000 to a widow, Mrs Francisca Marfo, on Friday June 3, on the first anniversary of the flood and fire tragedy that claimed close to 160 lives in Accra.

Mrs Marfo lost her husband, Kwame, in the blaze that swept through a GOIL filling station at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle in the aftermath of an explosion that happened during torrential rains on June 3 last year.

Mrs Marfo, who was on Nkran Kwanso, Accra FM’s drive time show, on Wednesday June 1, relived the tragic moments of that night to host Black Eye.

She said it had been pouring since afternoon. Her husband left home after 7:30pm for work. But upon reaching the Kwame Nkrumah Circle, which had flooded, he parked his car and waded through knee-high waters to the filling station, where he joined scores of persons who were waiting for the deluge to subside.

She said after three hours of her husband waiting at the filling station, she put a call through to his superior at work to give Kwame the night off, as he had waited without the possibility of the rain letting up, a request to which he acquiesced.

Mrs Marfo called back to her husband to relay the news to him, following which Kwame decided to move through the waters to get a taxi back home.

But he called back a little later, between 10:30 and 11pm, with news that there had been a fire outbreak following an explosion at the location he stood for shelter from the rain.

“I asked where the explosion had occurred, but I got no response from the other end of the line to this day. I heard nothing,” the sad mother-of-two broke down in tears in the studio as she relived the event.

After news reached her that many bodies had been charred at the filling station, she went to the scene of the accident in the hope of finding her husband, but the bodies had been conveyed to mortuaries in various hospitals in the capital.

She said after 10 days of hospital-hopping in Accra in search of her husband, she identified his body, with the help of his work mates, at the Police Hospital mortuary.

Asked by the host how she has coped with caring for two children in the absence of her husband, Mrs Marfo, who only resumed work four months ago after delivering their second child, who Kwame could not live to see, answered: “It’s the Lord. It’s the Lord who has taken care of us to this day. Were it not for God, I would probably not be here today.”

Mrs Marfo said she had also received support from relatives and friends.

She was grateful to Accra100.5FM for its kind gesture, promising to invest the money wisely.