The Ghanian, President John Dramani Mahama on Thursday announced three days of national mourning after a deadly petrol station fire killed at least 90 people during heavy flooding in the capital, Accra.(Read here)
“Rescue operations will continue until the weekend, Sunday. On Monday, we will observe three days of national mourning for the victims of the fire disaster and flooding,” he said.
The fire broke out at the filling station in the Kwame Nkrumah Circle area of the city late on Wednesday night and is thought to have spread from a nearby residence.Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama described the loss of life as “catastrophic and almost unprecedented”, as he toured the scene of the disaster on Thursday morning.
“A lot of people have lost their lives and I am lost for words,” he told reporters.
“As at now, the confirmed figure is hovering around 90 but I know it will be more than that,” national police spokesman Arthur Cephas told
“The relevant agencies are doing the tally.”Rescue officials were working to clear the area and bodies were piled onto flat-bed trucks, covered with tarpaulin sheets, as police in high-visibility vests stood guard at the scene.
Ghana National Fire Service spokesman Billy Anaglate said victims were being discovered during the salvage operations, making an exact death toll difficult to establish.
“If we begin taking any of those numbers we have gotten and we are working and we are getting a new one, we’ll begin changing the figures that we are giving,” he added.
Local hospitals said morgues were full and security officials said the death toll was likely to rise, as fire investigators picked through the charred debris to determine what caused the inferno.
Dozens of motorcycles were seen burnt and the fire is also thought to have engulfed a bus full of passengers that was waiting on the forecourt, an AFP reporter at the scene said.
AFP.
