RESCUE WORK CALLED OFF AT GALAMSEY SITE (1B, NOV 13)

Rescue operations at the Dompoase galamsey disaster site have been called off as a result of threatening signs of more landslides.
The search followed a slide that claimed the lives of 18 illegal miners, many of them women, at Dompoase near Wassa Akropong in the Amenfi East District of the Western Region.
The rescue team was made up of the police, led by the Tarkwa Divisional Police Commander, some of the illegal miners and town folks.
The disaster site has become very soft from intermittent rainfall and that, coupled with the numerous pits under the mountains where the disaster took place, poses a threat to the lives of the rescuers.
The search has been very difficult and dangerous because there are no proper tools and map of the pits to undertake the operation.
In the face of these difficulties, the police resorted to the use of bamboo sticks, shovels and their hands to search for trapped victims buried in the pit, dead or alive.
According to the Western Regional Crime Officer, Mr Victor Agbetornyo, the rescue team was forced to call off the search because the ground had become very dangerous and the top of the mountain had become very weak, threatening to collapse on the rescuers.
He said the team was under-resourced, adding, “The kind of tools we are using are not the best — shovels, sticks and other odd implements are not the best for a rescue operation of this nature.”
Mr Agbetornyo said the team was not in a position to tell the direction of the pit and its depth, “therefore if we don’t take care we will be risking our lives”.
When the Daily Graphic toured the place with the Regional Police Commander, the Deputy Western Regional Minister and the district chief executive, it was observed that some of the pits extended to the main street.
Asked about their impression of what had happened, some of the miners said they were not deterred at all and expressed their readiness to go back to work because “this is where we earn our daily bread”.
On the journey from the disaster site to Takoradi, it was common to see people openly carrying out galamsey activities by the roadside or under the mountains.
According to some of them, they would follow the gold to wherever it was buried.
Others were of the view that the victims trapped underground would give them more luck to succeed in their search for gold.