15 perished in Accident

Story: Moses Dotsey Aklorbortu, Asuoko-Assaman
THE small town of Asuoko-Assaman, near the Shama Junction in the Western Region, was on Friday night thrown into a state of profuse mourning when a Ford mini bus ran into an abandoned articulated truck, resulting in the death of 15 people on board the bus.
The accident, which occurred around 11.00 p.m., claimed seven lives on the spot, while the remaining five died shortly afterwards when they were rushed to the Effia-Nkwanta Hospital in Sekondi.
The articulated truck was said to have developed a fault at about 8:30 p.m. last Friday and was left in the middle of the road, with its parking light on. The driver of the truck claimed that apart from the parking light, he had positioned a warning triangle a distance behind the truck to warn oncoming vehicles of the danger.
But the Ford mini bus, which was said to be travelling at top speed, ran into the truck, resulting in the prohibitive loss of lives.
The dead included two military officers who were travelling to their duty station in Takoradi.
The identities of the remaining victims are yet to be established.
The impact of the crash was so great that it took the police and residents of the town more than six hours to disentangle the badly wrecked Ford mini bus, with registration number WR 2119 X, which had gone deep under the truck, with the registration number AS 5655 S and fully loaded with goods, and to retrieve the dead bodies.
The residents, who had to cut their sleep to help before the arrival of a police rescue team, could not to do much, as the victims had been seriously trapped under the heavy truck, from the rear of the truck to its axle.
According to the Western Regional Commander of the Motor Traffic and Transport Unit (MTTU) of the Ghana Police Service , Mr George Adussa-Poku, the police had the signal at about 11.00 p.m. and moved immediately to save the situation.
“The impact was so great that we could not have access to the victims, as they were trapped deep under the articulated truck,” he said.
“It took my men a hectic time to cut the metals and flip the mangled mini bus open to have access to some of the passengers who were already dead,” he said.
He said judging from the impact of the accident, the driver might have been travelling between 140 and 150 kilometres per hour, which he described as outrageous.
“If the driver had been travelling within the stipulated speed limit, knowing that he was approaching a town, the impact would not have been that powerful and we would have had some of the passengers alive to tell us what happened,” he added.
He disclosed that the driver of the truck had said his truck had developed a fault on the road to Takoradi at about 8:30 p.m. and that he (the driver) had erected a warning triangle and put on his parking lights.
 Mr Adussa-Poku explained that in the night if only the parking lights of a stationary vehicle were on, without the hazard lights, other vehicles approaching the faulty vehicle would presume the vehicle was in motion.
He said the identities of the victims were not yet known but added that the police managed to retrieve their mobile phones and relatives who had called to find out if their loved ones had arrived safely were greeted with the bad news of their death.
The Regional MTTU Commander said most accidents happened in the night when the police had retired for the day, adding that information available with regard to the Ford bus indicated that from the time the driver left the station in Accra to the time of the accident, he (the Ford driver) had travelled two hours, which was unacceptable.
Mr Adussa-Poku said the driver of the faulty articulated truck was currently in police custody and would be formally charged and processed for court today.
At the Ford Station in Takoradi, officials said the mini bus had 16 passengers on board who were travelling from Accra to Takoradi but only one person had alighted before the accident occurred.
They said it would be very difficult to make any comment, since they could not confirm the speed at which the driver of the Ford had been travelling.
The police expressed the hope that the families of the victims would be located soon to inform them of the tragic incident.
The bodies have since been deposited at the morgue at the Effia-Nkwanta Regional Hospital, while the MTTU has since moved the two vehicles to the Sekondi Police Station.