HAITI TRAGEDY SHOULD ALERT TAWKWA RESIDENTS (PAGE 20, FEB 2, 2010)

THE recent sad news from Haiti in the North Atlantic Sea should signal residents in the Tarkwa Nsuayem Municipality in the Western Region that they must be relocated as they are not safe in case of the slightest earth tremor.
The municipality is said to be sitting on a time bomb. The reason is that hollow lands with more than 100 underground abandoned mine shafts dating back to 1839 have had their surface turned into commercial and residential facilities.
With the elevation of Tarkwa from district to municipality, the population is now very large, compelling the people to turn every available space into human settlement.
It is likely that the slightest blast by galamsey operators would be very dangerous to the residents.
Currently, many private buildings, fuel stations, school buildings and market structures have developed deep cracks from the blasting by illegal miners operating in the shafts beneath the grounds on which the municipality is located.
In the Tarkwa town centre, the ground in the middle of a market caved in and the building housing the Ghana National Fire Service was completely destroyed. A private fuel station was also affected.
According the experts, the colonial gold explorers had designed the shafts to stand the test of time, with some shafts stretching about 14 levels, which measure about 2,240 metres underground.
The danger is that the illegal miners have dug the pillars that are holding the earth at each level through unguided blasting at levels three and four, which are holding the municipality.
Each shaft employs about 1,000 people. For this reason, in case of any disaster, apart from the threat to lives and property on the surface, the lives of thousands underground would be at stake.
Realising the looming danger after the tour of the area with media practitioners, the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Mr Collins Dauda, ordered the immediate halt of the mining operations and sealing of some of the shafts that posed danger to the lives of schoolchildren.
But few days after the minister’s visit, it was clear that his order had not been followed, as brisk galamsey business was being carried out in the abandoned pits in more vigorous and dangerous manner.
That aside, the experts were of the view that due to the layout of the shafts, the current development of Tarkwa Municipality should not have been permitted.
They warned that if care was not taken or nothing was done to halt the blasting that shakes the ground in the area, the country should expect an imminent tragedy.